Emojis

OOpps sorry knowing I'm a dinosaur and behind the times with anything techie and all the abreviations that go with it, I assume that if I know something everyone does.

Lol seems to be quite a common misunderstanding.

I didn’t understand what ‘DiL’ or ‘pooter’ meant when I first came here and read your posts. I used to think that LOL meant ‘lots of love’.

Years ago I was sent a text by a colleague who wrote LOL and I thought she fancied me. 

I think it the stardardised shape that maybe giving me problems rather than the opposite. Maybe I'm emoji dyslexic, like I am with words? I suppose for me, I'm so used to reading the vibe people give off that no matter what comes out of thier mouths, I know pretty much what they're feeling, if they're unhappy and I ask how htey are and they say fine, I take them at face value, they don't have to tell me things they don't want too.

I'm not sure my phone does emoji's and I tend to use it more for things like arranging a dog walk or a hairdressers appointment, it's such a faff typing it all out that I don't bother and if I have something that needs more than a few words I call or email them.

Some abreviations confuse me too, actually most do, my DiL sent me an email with oxoxo at the end and I honestly wondered why she was sending me stock cubes?

i agree - if you can do anything requiring manipulating facts to devise solutions  you can apply this learning to most situations [unless it is a complex scientific subject requiring specialist training]. Humans have similar emotions hard wired in their dna. True, you cannot give a nuanced 'meaning' with an emoji but they're a good starting point. I think many people underestimate their ability to learn - closing their minds by saying, 'I'm rubbish at [xx]' i.e. panicking without trying. 

I for sure find it easier to react like that, because noone is watching my face while I am reading a message. Same goes for answering, i can steategically choose which face I want to make while in Person I make a face and then it happened, cant really take it back but it is tougher to Control. It would be really interesting to see someone make a study about that.

vertebrae said:

Messaging with many people, I learned patterns on which emoji fits which facial expression/feeling I think

It’s an interesting subject and worthy of exploring further. I wonder if others learn this way.

Can emojis increase autistic people’s communication skills? Do autistic people find emojis easier to understand than human expressions? 

I think the variation in people’s face and mouth shape can some times hinder me from understanding the true meaning. Most emoji’s have a standardised shape so that helps.

Ah, i never thought about it that much honestly. But for me I can imagine what face the person would make, if we would be talking in person. And that way I get the meaning of the smiley. Messaging with many people, I learned patterns on which emoji fits which facial expression/feeling I think. But of course this mostly goes for people I know personally. I have to observe how i use smileys with people I have only messaged with.

I think it could be a different thing from reading human human faces for many autistic people.

Perhaps many people who don’t message people regularly using emojis won’t naturally know what they mean.

I take all emoji smiles to mean happy, pleasant or benevolent, whereas sometimes humans smile but are being sarcastic so it’s not always clear what they mean. Likewise the down turned mouth means sadness, but a person might say I’m very unhappy and had a downturned mouth but they are meaning the opposite. I think the mouth with lips straight across means neutral or neither happy or sad. People might send an emoji that has a wide smile and tears if they are telling a joke or they find something somebody says is funny. 

I don’t know many of the other emojis and some of the faces are difficult for me to read. I expect if I regularly messaged people using more emojis I would soon learn what they mean, but I am ok as I am for now. 

I've tried enlarging them, but I still have to stare at them for a long time to work out what it is, by which time the point of it has disapeared, a bit like having to have a joke explained to you, the meaning sort of gets lost.

I thought that one of the common things with autism is an inability to read emotional expression in faces? So why is it so odd to be confused by an emoji?

I don’t know what most emojis mean and when I look up their meanings they can have several which have seemingly no connection to one another. Also, the various emoji reference directories differ from one another.

I sometimes use the smiling, laughing, sad, puzzled and confused emojis because they are useful if you are saying something in a tone of voice that can’t be portrayed in words. I sometimes send a friend pink hearts and other variations of hearts to mean loving friendship rather than romantic love. I’m always worried that I’ll send the wrong thing and somebody will think I’m after a romantic liaison. 

I use emoji's but they can be tricky as their meaning can shift a lot, especially amongst generations. If in doubt I don't use them with people unless I see them using them.

My main use on whatsapp is the smiling with tears in the eyes -it's meant to show joy and can mean a chuckle, or laughing at yourself, so you can use it to make sure the tone of your message is light and not serious. That and hearts, as people use them to show appreciation. They are small on this site, and the harsh white background makes them difficult to see (visual accessability on this site isn't great). Though I do like when people use them as their own signature ones.

As a contractor, different workplaces have their own in-jokes, and which ones are used and how much you use them. It is another thing to learn for each job.  Also as there is ambiguity in their interpretation (teenagers might tell you they mean different things, to say, someone my age), on a site for autistic people I don't tend to use them here in case they just cause confusion.

When the series 'Adolesance' came out, it shocked a lot of us, as the kids were communicating with emojis, and what looked like normal pictures were laced with misogony to teenagers. If you don't understand them, I think it is safest to just not use them, or ask if you want to find out!

(It's a bit like slang, it marks the generations and the times and is constantly shifting).

TheCatWoman said:

I can't read emojis, part of it is the size of the things

You can increase the size of the display if it is just a limitation of your vision - click on the View menu on your web browser, xlick on Zoom then Click on Zoom In - repeat until it is big enough to identify.

To reset back to normal zoon just click on the percentage number in the address bar of your browser.

If it is a limitation of your mind then I suggest using your intellect to overcome this. You are intelligent and educated so use these abilities - learn what the emojis mean ( use a site such as https://www.scienceofpeople.com/emojis/ ) where they are fairly clearly laid out for you to understand.

You can refer back to it when you see a new one you have not come across yet. 

There is nothing cryprtic or complex about them and understanding it is well within your capabilities.

If you put in the effort and still don't understand then this is something to use your therapy training to understand. Work out why there is a mental block here - what ,makes you resist learning. With this understanding you can make an educated decison on whether it is a case of you can't or you won't.

I am wondering, is it annoying for you to read texts where someone uses emojis?

My mum who is probably just a different generation also does not know how to handle anything besides the Standard happy and sad Face. We once looked closely at some emojis together because she asked me what they ment. We differed quite a lot in how we "translated" them and I was quite surprised.

If it is not a certain inside joke between friends or something I think I use it in a way similar to using ironic Statements: if i feel like someone will get it i use it, otherwise i dont. If I am not sure I will mostly explain what I mean anyway. And I dont mind if someone asks. Sometimes I just use emojis to make the conversation a little "lighter" and "happy" I guess. If I tell someone "yesterday I went to the zoo" it feels a little heavier to me then "yesterday I went to the Zoo " even though there is no deeper meaning behind the emoji.

Sometimes I just use them because I like the pictures -> .

So my mum just ignores them or asks "do you mean that in a good or bad way" or something along those lines if she suspects some "between the lines"-context.

May I ask how conversations in person feel for you? Do you notice when people make laughter out of embarassment or something like that? Because I know I use different Tones talking to different people amd same happens in written conversation somehow. With some it just does not feel natural to use emojis, but I assume this mostly when they dont use any.

Honestly i think to some emojis there cant be a deeper meaning. What would a brokkoli mean anyway? But it looks healthy I guess?