The expressions on a person's face can't be translated perfectly in text, even if emojis include a set of varied faces. "Face-to-face, you get intonation, speech tempo, hand gestures, furrowed brows," he tells me. "We're trying to make sense of an impoverished channel of communication. We're trying to make ourselves understood." So, a wide smile in emoji form may not mean joy, but could instead mean a variety of expressions not easily interpreted by the receiver of the message