Menlo Park, US – A recent study conducted on the demographic of humor online by Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) proves that LOL (the acronym for “laughing out loud”) is dead. The company says people are choosing to use “haha” and emojis icons over “LOL” to express laughter. Facebook folks evaluated e-laughter by analyzing posts and comments made on their site in the last week of May. According to the study, type of e-laughter symbol and length depends on age, gender and geographical location. The survey shows 51.4% people use “haha” while Emoji is the second biggest way of communicating a laugh at 33.7%. Whereas “hehe” is represented by 13.1% and only 1.9% people use “LOL”. The study also includes 46% users laugh online just once in a week and 85% post less than five laughs in a week.
Facebook’s researchers said,
“The most common are the four-letter hahas and hehes. The six-letter hahaha is also very common, and in general, the haha-ers use longer laughter. The haha-ers are also slightly more open than the hehe-ers to using odd number of letters, and we do see the occasional hahaas and hhhhaaahhhaas. The lol almost always stands by itself, though some rare specimens of lolz and loll were found. A single emoji is used 50 percent of the time, and it’s quite rare to see people use more than five identical consecutive emoji”.
Looking at the types of e-laughter evolving, the research found that male users use “haha” and “hehe” while women are mostly on emoji and LOL. The study says emoji is mostly used in Chicago and least in Seattle; while New York is the fastest moving over from LOL and get back to “haha” and “hehe”.
But whatever case is, laughter makes people feel happy and relax to open up while chatting online. So people should keep doing it in whatever way they prefer to communicate their laughter.