- Emoji are the smiley faces you often see in messages
- They’re easy to create using a phone or tablet
- They can express emotion – everything from happy and sad to anger
Smiley faces and other tiny pictures in messages are incredibly common. We’re all used to seeing characters such as ?, ??♂️, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ♥️, and ?.. But what do emojis mean, and how do you use emoji?
What do emojis mean?
There are hundreds and hundreds of emoji out there, and there is a full list of them and what they mean here.
However, some of the most common are:
- ? – smiley face
- ? – laughing or tears of joy
- ❤️ – heart
- ? – winking face
- ? – grimacing face
The history of the emoji
Emoji first started out on smartphones in Japan in 1997, and exploded in popularity when they were added to the software of modern smartphones from Google and Apple.
How to create emoji on an iPhone
Using emoji on the iPhone and iPad is simple.
In fact, Apple built a special keyboard just for emoji you use to put them in your messages.
You can use it whenever you see the on screen keyboard appear.
How to use emoji on an iPhone
- Switch to the emoji keyboard
Tap the text field, then tap
or 
to switch between the emoji keyboard and the normal text keyboard - Select the emoji you want to use
You’ll see a while bunch of emoji on screen, and there are even more available if you tap on the gray icons at the bottom of the keyboard, or swipe right of left using your finger.
- Add the emoji
To inset the emoji you want, just tap it, and it will appear in your message. You can then switch back to the text keyboard by following step 1. You can also customise some emoji by tapping and holding it down – this lets you change the skin tone of certain emoji, for example.
