Emoji Illiteracy Amongst Irish Adults At All Time High

THERE has been a worrying increase in the number of Irish adults who are emoji illiterate, a new study has revealed.

The recent surge in use of emojis to replace some if not all forms of communication has led to a picture based system of expression, but as many as 67 in every 100 Irish adults are hiding the fact they are unable to understand emojis.

“It’s not easy to live with I’ll be honest. The kids are there showing me this emoji, that emoji and I laugh on the outside, but on the inside I’m probably whatever emoji is used to denote sadness, but because I’m an idiot who can’t use them, I wouldn’t know what emoji that is,” father-of-three Dermot Ryan told WWN, explaining his difficulty with emoji illiteracy before crumbling into a pile of tears.

Dermot is not alone in his difficulty with the now widely used form of communication.

“A friend sent me a thumbs up, and at first I thought ‘yeah, I can do this’, seems easy enough,” explained Sheila Neville.

“But next thing I know I’m getting a flurry of images of pint glasses, faces with tongues hanging out, some Spanish lass dancing too and then I get an angry phone call from that friend asking why I didn’t meet him in D2 at 9.30pm like the emojis stated, I feel like an idiot,” a distressed Sheila added.

“It’s actually quite a harrowing experience for those unable to communicate in the written emoji. They feel isolated, and sadly there is the fear of being ‘found out’ and ridiculed for their emoji illiteracy,” emoji education specialist Gavin Hardiman told WWN, “100% of young people have no problem with it, with many children’s first words being ‘wavey ghost emoji thingy’, if only the adults could harness that enthusiasm”.

As a result of the shocking news, the Government has rolled out countless emoji education workshops nationwide for adults, which begin later this week.