“Using Emojis at Work? You’re Not Going to Like This Study!” That’s the headline of a recent Gizmodo article about new research from the University of Ottawa. With a headline like that, you may be worried that the message you sent yesterday afternoon with a smiley face 🙂 at the end could land you in hot water with the recipient. Yet, as is often the case with science reporting, the findings are much more nuanced than the online headlines would lead you to believe. In fact, the real takeaway from the work led by Dr. Erin Courtice and colleagues is that emojis at work aren’t inherently bad, but the ways we express ourselves in the workplace are shaped by unspoken rules. Failing to follow those rules could result in penalties, but following them might improve how you are perceived by colleagues. Courtice and colleagues ran a simple yet elegant experiment in which 243 undergraduates were asked to evaluate hypothetical or simulated workplace instant messages (IMs). Each message varied in tone (positive, negative, neutral), emoji type …