I remember I have raised this subject before and I would still raise it again!
For the umpteenth times, responding with thumbs up emojis to a message or information sent to you is disrespectful!
Especially when the sender is far older than you.
Also, it hurts when you had expected common “thank you” from someone you had shared an important information with and then all you got in return was just thumbs up emoji.
Common, we are Africans for goodness sakes, and we should never allow social media craze to becloud our sense of reasoning.
Currently, in some developed climes such as Canada and US, responding with thumbs up has generated on-going debates even in the law court.
Thumbs up is one of the most abused, wrongly used and misinterpreted emojis on social media. Because it connotes different meanings to different people and as such we must be wary of how we use it amongst ourselves.
For instance, on Facebook thumbs up means just to like a post. While on other social platforms the meaning might be different.
On Instagram also, you will hardly find thumbs up emoji under a post only love emoji. You can only find thumbs up emoji in the chat box on Instagram and it is usually the last emoji options that would pop up. Go and re-check if you have an Instagram account.
The reason behind this isn’t farfetched. It is simply to prevent abusive usage of it.
Nonetheless, these understanding would help us to avoid excessive usage of it. I know many still see it as the easiest emoji to respond with while chatting on social media but we must also put into cognizance how the other party who happens to be at the receiving end of our conversation would feel about our responses too.
Using thumb up emojis to respond to all messages on Whatsapp for instance would not only show your lack of interests in the message but it would also portray you as being too casual as an individual.
We must understand that using thumbs up can be best while having an informal conversation with one’s equals or contemporaries but not for someone far older than you! It is disrespectful! Stop it!