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New Indian Express

What's Your EQ: Exploring generation gap between Gen Z and millennials

Samiksha M, 23, an engineering student explains a crucial difference in how millennials and older look at emojis compared to Gen Z. 'They see what an emoji stands for – a smiley face emoji is smiling, a dancing emoji is dancing, a skull emoji is literal death – but we see the emotion or vibe of the picture and use it accordingly,' she says, adding, 'When I use the standing man emoji, which seems to confuse many older people, I'm using it to respond to someone and say, 'I'm awkwardly looking at you because of what you said.'' While millennials and older have stuck to using emojis as embellishment at the end of their sentences, Pandharipande notes that Gen Z uses them to 'convey feelings that maybe text cannot.' He explains, 'When someone in a group says they have gossip. A lot of Gen Z would put the side eye emoji – that also conveys what needs to be conveyed.' According to linguist Dr Reshma Jacob, assistant professor, department of English, Christ University, emojis have evolved from just being used to indicate tone to also signalling whether or not one belongs to a particular group, a common feature in languages. She says, 'It is also about formation of an identity and a sense of belongingness. As in any language-speaking community – we want to communicate the same thing but choose different words based on social or cultural factors (gender, caste, age, race or ethnicity). Fluent speakers understand the nuances, otherwise, you feel something is odd, but are not able to put your finger on that difference.'