Most confusing emoji

According to a study published by the University of Minnesota in April 2016, Microsoft’s "smiling face with open mouth and tightly closed eyes" was ranked as the world’s most confusing emoji, with interpretations ranging from euphoric laughter to extreme pain. PhD students from the university’s GroupLens lab – which examines social technologies – devised a 10-point emotional scale, ranging from -5 to +5, on which volunteers participating in the study could rank a range of different emojis. This particular emoji was rated positively by half of the participants, while the other half rated it negatively – giving an overall spread of 4.4 points, the biggest gap of any emoji studied.

They also found that Google’s version of the emoji was overall the most positively ranked, while Apple’s was the worst – coming in with an overall negative score. That means that sending this emoji from a Google Nexus phone to an Apple iPhone, or vice versa, actually conveys the complete opposite to the intended meaning.