I don't know what "modern communication" you're using, but the only emoji I use are ones that can be written in simple ascii, :( , :-/ , :) , :D , ;) , etc. Most emoji are simply symbols for different activities, but they don't need to be used at all. The only place I see heavy use of emoji is on twitter, but that's because of the character limitation. Additionally emoji are colored and not black and white like text so they're glaring with respect to text around them.