This article is part of a VB special issue. Read the full series: Automation and jobs in the new normal.
According to a new study by the human-centered automation company Hyperscience, 81% of people believe automation can lead to more meaningful work, despite common misperceptions around what automation is, how it’s being used today, and how the U.S. workforce views it.
In its 2021 Automation Pulse Report, Hyperscience found that there continues to be widespread misunderstanding of what automation is. Specifically, while 75% of respondents believe they know what automation is, 55% brought up popular misconceptions when asked to explain that understanding further. Responses included technology existing solely to replace people (17%), automation is a job killer (3%), and conflating AI with automation (10%).
Despite the increasing adoption of automation in today’s digital-first workforce, many respondents did not identify particular benefits and use cases of automation across various industries. While 70% of respondents said automation could add value for the transportation and logistics sector, and 66% believe it adds value for financial services and banking, responses were less convinced of value adds for healthcare (48%), insurance (47%), and government/public sector (45%).
One of the bigger highlights from the study specifically focused on millennials, the largest generation in the U.S. labor force today, who are increasingly ready to work side-by-side with this technology. In fact, more than a third (35%) of millennials believe humans and machines can work together and 63% believe automation in the workplace is a good thing — especially if used to alleviate certain work burdens.
Forty-three percent of all respondents agreed with this sentiment, ranking a better employee experience as a result of using automation as the most important part of technological advancement in the workplace. Technology affecting the customer and overall customer experience (34%) ranked a close second, while only 23% of respondents selected the company as the most important beneficiary of technology.
When I saw the news that Apple would be releasing 217 new emojis into the world, I did what I always do: I asked my undergraduates what it meant to them. “We barely use them anymore,” they scoffed. To them, many emojis are like overenthusiastic dance moves at weddings: reserved for awkward millennials. “And they use them all wrong anyway,” my cohort from generation Z added earnestly.
My work focuses on how people use technology, and I’ve been following the rise of emoji for a decade. With 3,353 characters available and 5 billion sent each day, emojis are now a significant language system.
When the emoji database is updated, it usually reflects the needs of the time. This latest update, for instance, features a new vaccine syringe and more same-sex couples.
But if my undergraduates are anything to go by, emojis are also a generational battleground. Like skinny jeans and side partings, the “laughing crying emoji,” better known as ????, fell into disrepute among the young in 2020 – just five years after being picked as the Oxford Dictionaries’ 2015 Word of the Year. For gen Z TikTok users, clueless millennials are responsible for rendering many emojis utterly unusable – to the point that some in gen Z barely use emojis at all.
[Read: How do you build a pet-friendly gadget? We asked experts and animal owners]
Research can help explain these spats over emojis. Because their meaning is interpreted by users, not dictated from above, emojis have a rich history of creative use and coded messaging. Apple’s 217 new emojis will be subjected to the same process of creative interpretation: accepted, rejected, or repurposed by different generations based on pop culture currents and digital trends.
Previously, the syringe emoji suggested blood extraction. The new, updated emoji looks more like a vaccine. Apple/Emojipedia
Face the facts
When emojis were first designed by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, they were intended specifically for the Japanese market. But just over a decade later, the Unicode Consortium, sometimes described as “the UN for tech,” unveiled these icons to the whole world.
In 2011, Instagram tracked the uptake of emojis through user messages, watching how ???? eclipsed 🙂 in just a few years. Old-style smileys, using punctuation marks, now look as outdated as Shakespearean English on our LED screens: a sign of fogeyness in baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) or an ironic throwback for the hipsters of gen Z.
The Unicode Consortium now meets each year to consider new types of emoji, including emojis that support inclusivity. In 2015, a new range of skin colors was added to existing emojis. In 2021, the Apple operating system update will include mixed-race and same-sex couples, as well as men and women with beards.
Bitter boomers?
Not everyone has been thrilled by the rise of emoji. In 2018, a Daily Mail headline lamented that “Emojis are ruining the English language,” citing research by Google in which 94% of those surveyed felt that English was deteriorating, in part because of emoji use.
But such criticisms, which are sometimes leveled by boomers, tend to misinterpret emojis, which are after all informal and conversational, not formal and oratory. Studies have found no evidence that emojis have reduced overall literacy.
On the contrary, it appears that emojis actually enhance our communicative capabilities, including language acquisition. Studies have shown how emojis are an effective substitute for gestures in non-verbal communication, bringing a new dimension to text.
A 2013 study, meanwhile, suggested that emojis connect to the area of the brain associated with recognizing facial expressions, making a ???? as nourishing as a human smile. Given these findings, it’s likely that those who reject emojis actually impoverish their language capabilities.
Creative criticism
The conflict between gen Z and millennials, meanwhile, emerges from confused meanings. Although the Unicode Consortium has a definition for each icon, including the 217 Apple are due to release, out in the wild they often take on new meanings. Many emojis have more than one meaning: a literal meaning, and a suggested one, for instance. Subversive, rebellious meanings are often created by the young: today’s gen Z.
The aubergine ???? is a classic example of how an innocent vegetable has had its meaning creatively repurposed by young people. The brain ???? is an emerging example of the innocent-turned-dirty emoji canon, which already boasts a large corpus.
These three emojis will also hit iPhones with Apple’s latest update. Their meaning is yet to be decided. Emojipedia/Apple
And it doesn’t stop there. With gen Z now at the helm of digital culture, the emoji encyclopedia is developing new ironic and sarcastic double meanings. It’s no wonder that millennials can’t keep up, and keep provoking outrage from younger people who consider themselves to be highly emoji-literate.
Emojis remain powerful means of emotional and creative expression, even if some in gen Z claim they’ve been made redundant by misuse. This new batch of 217 emojis will be adopted across generations and communities, with each staking their claim to different meanings and combinations. The stage is set for a new round of intergenerational mockery.
