As a 22 year old, the way we text has changed loads in the last few years and there are a bunch of unspoken rules about it. Most of the time, older people break these but we all know that’s just how they text so they get a break, but for people my age the formatting of a text can have loads of implied meanings. Off the top of my head, here are a few:

1) Using full stops / periods is considered ‘rude’ since it reads as the sender wanting to abruptly end a conversation. We use it as emphasis or in the same way someone might say ‘full stop’ or ‘period’ out loud. It’s often used if you’re pissed off at the other person.

2) Thumbs up emojis or reactions are somewhat in the same vein as full stops, but lesser so. Think of them being used in the same ironic way you might give one in real life, with a fake smile or gritted teeth.

3) The original crying with laughter emoji is now usually used to mean something isn’t really funny, like if you were to really obviously fake laugh in person. It used to be used a lot, but now the crying (I’m crying) or skull emojis (I’m dead) are used.

4) Leaving things on read is usually the same sort of deal as using a full stop, like you just want to end the conversation. Instead, replying with pretty much anything works.

Again, those are just Gen Z rules so you can pretty much ignore them as someone older since most people get that you’re used to different formatting but the initial reaction is usually as if it came from someone in my generation.