Next Track Button

The next-track control found on most music and video players. Two triangles point forward and run into a vertical bar: think of the bar as the start of the next item, and the arrows take you straight to it. The same symbol has sat on CD players and remote controls for decades, is printed on the media keys of many computer keyboards, and appears in the on-screen controls of Spotify, YouTube and the music app on most phones.

Its mirror image ⏮️ goes back to the previous track (on some players a first press restarts the current one instead). The set is completed by ▶️ play, ⏸️ pause, ⏩ fast-forward and ⏪ rewind. The one that trips people up is ⏩: no bar, so it means speeding through the thing you are already watching, not skipping to the next one.

What does it mean when someone sends ⏭️?

Next, skip it, or let's move on. Under a song or playlist link it is literal: skip this one, play the next. In a chat about a show it marks what was skipped (the intro, a boring episode) or what comes next. In lists and plans it stands for the next step or the next item on the agenda.

Sent alone as a reply to someone's story or opinion, it can read as a spoken "Next!": not interested, moving on. Between friends that is a joke; from someone you don't know well it lands as a brush-off.