The ONE Reason You Should Never Use Emojis, According to the Experts

Using emojis in the workplace makes you look unprofessional, reveals a new study.

While you might think adding a smiley onto the end of an email or to a WhatsApp message adds an air of friendliness, it actually communicates incompetence. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel conducted a series of experiments with 549 participants, from 29 different countries, reports The Independent. They asked participants to read similar work-related emails from a stranger and subsequently evaluate their warmth and professional competence - some of which included emojis, some didn't.

The results were interesting.

"Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence," revealed Dr Ella Gilkson. "In formal business e-mails, a smiley is not a smile."

"The study also found that when the participants were asked to respond to e-mails on formal matters, their answers were more detailed and they included more content-related information when the e-mail did not include a smiley," she added.

"We found that the perceptions of low competence if a smiley is included in turn undermined information sharing."

So be warned - leave emojis out the workplace.

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