I use emojis very sparingly, usually at the end of a sentence analogous to a punctuation mark. I never use more than two in a row, and never more than one of the same one.
In texting and messaging apps (as well as emails if I’m using Outlook) I may respond with a single emoji, often 👍, to indicate that I received the message and will comply with any requests.
The above demonstrates what I believe are the ideal use of emojis, as a compact way to express an otherwise unwieldy response, or a way to convey things like tone of voice and facial expression that is present in a face to face conversation but not in writing.
However, In my opinion, emojis rob the conversation of any gravitas whatsoever, so responding to “My dog died yesterday” with “I’m so sorry 😭😭😭” makes it sound like you’re making light of the situation. I get others may not feel the same way, so I don’t call them out when they do it, but it rubs me the wrong way personally.
Most screen readers will read out the unicode description of the character or render the description as a transcriber’s note on a braille display, so 🤮 is announced as face vomiting and written ⠈⠨⠣⠋⠁⠉⠑⠀⠧⠕⠍⠊⠞⠬⠈⠨⠜. If you spam a bunch (🔥🔥🔥🤣🤣🤣) it can quickly get very long.
It’s also apparent that people use the “wrong” emoji for the situation, and I don’t mean in the sense that the semantics of the symbol have widened or changed with usage. 😂 is often used to express sadness, when the description is “face with tears of joy”. 😢"crying face" would be much more apt.
It seems to be highly dependant on culture, context and age. I feel like my generation (millennial) uses emoji the least, as we grew up with digital communication but without emoji. I basically use emoji in a similar way to you - sparingly and rarely more than 1 in a message. Younger and older generations both started using digital means of communication when emoji were already established though, and they tend to use them way more in my experience.
In regards to “wrong” interpretation of emoji, they can also have different established meanings for different cultures. 😪 for example is sometimes used to represent having a cold in the west, but in Asia it represents being sleepy (which is its intended meaning). Or 😉, which is considered suggestive/flirty in anglophone countries, but is used for making a lighthearted joke in Germany.
1990 here and yeah, I use very sparingly. I don’t care what others do because usually I can figure out what’s being expressed easily enough by younger gen.
The line I draw is using them in a serious context like on a debate forum for example. I guess I can’t fully shake off decorum.
Your timing is all wrong
Millenials grew up when emojis had been around since before you were born (they were in XMPP messengers in the mid/late 90’s).
They didn’t make it to phones until about 2005 with devices like the Treo.
Aren’t millennials considered to have started being born in the early 80’s?
I believe the most widely cited range is 1983-1996. '96 is too young IMO. I tend to describe it qualitatively. Millennials were too young to care about the cold war, but old enough to care about 9/11, and were in college or recently graduated just in time for the great recession. So we had an optimistic childhood, were made painfully aware of global geopolitics just as we were becoming adolescents, and got economically punched in the gut just in time to start adulting for real.
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it
Mid late 90s is well after many millenials were born.
I was born in 1992 and I’m considers to be on the younger half of the millennial generation