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Science Has Spoken. You’re Using Emojis to Hide Your Feelings.

Turns out those smily faces are actually hiding real negative emotions.

You might think of emojis as a helpful tool to communicate how you feel about something, but a new study suggests they might do the opposite. A researcher at the University of Tokyo found that participants in a study who sent happy emojis often did so to hide negative emotions and make their messages appear more positive, according to CBS News. “We need those yellow faces to help us to express,” Moyu Liu, an emotional behavior expert, said. But the study of over 1,200 mostly female volunteers between the ages of 11 and 26 found expression might be being obscured with emojis and that people are more likely to fake their true feelings when speaking to people of higher social status. People also hid their emotions more in group chats than one-on-one conversations.