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Using emojis doesn’t mean you’re dumb or unprofessional

Jody ByrnebyJody Byrne
October 4, 2023
5 minute read

What’s the problem with emojis?

For some people, emojis and GIFs and general computer or text speak are the curse of the Internet and proof that people are getting dumber and forgetting how to speak properly. In a world where cat memes and tik tok dances are hot topics of conversation it’s easy to fall into this trap. But research suggests that there might actually be a positive relationship between computer speak and literacy, with one study actually going so far as to correlate computer speak with higher levels of linguistic and cognitive skill.

So, far from being a sign that the world is doomed, emojis and gifs might actually be your most useful tool when it comes to communicating online.

Online communication isn’t perfect

Now, if you think about it, the idea that emojis could be a communication lifesaver actually makes a lot of sense because when we communicate in real life, we use facial expressions, body language and all sorts of things like tone of voice and nonverbal cues to get our message across. But if you stick a computer screen and a couple of hundred kilometres of cable between you and the person you’re talking to, all of these subtle nonverbal clues are stripped away and you’re left with just the words that you typed.

You really have to hope that those words are clear enough to be fully understood and that the person you’re speaking to is paying enough attention to the context to be able to infer the correct meaning from what you said. Now, more often than not, the basic message gets through, but the nuances and meaning that make all the difference to how you communicate are lost.

Paralinguistic communication

Emojis, creative punctuation, unusual spelling, animated gifs, and videos are a form of paralinguistic communication that adds a layer of additional meaning onto what you say, and it can help us communicate more effectively and clearly. At the very least, they’re a communicate safety net because even if what you say isn’t fully understood, the fact that there’s an emoji or a gif in there should be enough of a clue to the person you’re speaking to that there’s more to what you said than the precise words you used. When you consider that a lot of people are communicating in a language which may not be their first, or even their second, language.

Anything that aids communication can only be a good thing. But going back to this idea that computer speak and emojis are somehow responsible for lowering levels of literacy and probably to the fall of civilization as we know it. It’s just not supported by the research. The truth is that nobody really knows for sure what effect they’re having on literacy.

Do emojis and text-speak really harm literacy?

There are various studies that go way back to 2009, but none of them agree on what computer speak and emojis actually harm literacy. Now, some of them say that they do. Others say that they don’t affect literacy and that they’re actually a sign of someone with higher literacy levels on cognitive skills. Other studies weasel a little bit and hedge their bets by saying “Oh, it all depends on the context, so it may, or it may not…”. But that’s really not much use to anyone.

But what is digital literacy?

But really what we should be doing is looking at what exactly it is we mean when we say literacy in the first place. Now, back in Victorian times, literacy was a measure of whether you could read, write, and count well enough to be able to work in one of the factories.

Thankfully, our definition of literacy has come a long way since then, and we no longer have this outdated notion of literacy as this mahoosive, big, standardized, monolithic thing that people have to master. In 2004, researchers whose names I can’t pronounce, set out what literacy means in a modern digital age. And they say that because communicating in the modern world takes a wide range of complex cognitive, motor, sociological and emotional skills, digital literacy really consists of a number of things.

Firstly, we have photovisual skills which allow us to read instructions from graphical displays and visual media. We have reproduction skills which allow us to create new and meaningful content from existing material. Then we have branching skills which we use to construct knowledge from non-linear information. Then there are information skills which we use to evaluate the quality and the validity of information that we consume.

And finally, we have socio-emotional skills which we use to understand the rules of online communication. So emojis, like a lot of new communication styles that computers have given rise to, are simply just another dialect or maybe even a genre of text. Now, this doesn’t make them inherently better or worse. It’s just that they’re designed for specific contexts where it makes sense to actually use them.

Remember, we make the rules!

If you go as far back as, say, 1980, you have people like Pierce and Cronin who reminded us that language and communication are governed by socially negotiated rules and agreed meanings. Now, what this means is that using emojis and the like is actually a democratic thing that groups of people subconsciously agree to use.

So, if people start using emojis and computer speak, it’s not because standards are slipping. It’s because the standards themselves are changing and evolving. Once you use them in moderation. Emojis, computer-speak and other creative methods of communicating are a tremendous help when it comes to communicating electronically. But the challenge is not to overdo it and make sure that the context is right. Remember that emojis informal correspondence is still probably a bad idea and writing an entire press release in emojis like Chevrolet did a few years ago is an even worse idea.

Handy references

If you want to do some reading on literacy, text-speak, and emojis here are some handy research articles to get you started.

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Jody Byrne
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Jody Byrne
Experimental communicator, educator, designer, lover of jellybeans and writer of stuff with a paradoxical fear of heights but love of roller coasters.
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