You might think the sentiment conveyed by a text message heart emoji would be self-explanatory but new research finds ...

Does death become trivialised when it goes online? Has the language we use to express grief become an emoji-coded tale, signifying nothing? Why send flowers when you can send a bouquet icon?

The black heart is described as “a more masculine alternative to the red emoji … which can symbolise grief ” while green is deemed to be “one of the most innocent and platonic alternatives ...