Facebook gives us a wealth of information. You find old friends, discover relatives, and now, they tell you what's the trending way of 'laughing online'. E-laughter is the new term that describes laughing in cyber space, on social media. An actual study reveals if you are still using LOL (laugh out loud), then you must be too old.
E-laughter actually varies by age and gender. Facebook wanted to put a science behind laughing so it conducted a review of all posts and comments for the last month of May.
15% of the people in FB include an e-laughter in their post or comment.
The most common form of e-laughter is haha, comprising 51.4%.
The second one is using an emoji, which is very common among young people, and between the sexes, common among women. An emoji are variations of the smiley faces.
The third most common is hehe, used by 13.1% of the FB users. Men prefer this form of laughter, usually elongating it to hehehe.
And lastly, if you still live from a decade ago, you would be using LOL, like 1.9% of the people.
The study was conducted by a New Yorker reporter, Sarah Larson, and was published in an article aptly titled, 'Hahaha vs. Hehehe.'
Some people use combinations of hehehe an emojis. The study further broke down the e-laughter variations based on one's state.
Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook studies the influx of posts and comments to analyze human behavior.
Meanwhile, laughter is one interesting topic to study. April 14th is International Moment of Laughter Day. Many posted pictures and videos in social media meant to elicit laughter. There were also articles published that listed the benefits of laughing. Laughter releases endorphins, which reduce sensations of pain, and instead stimulates positive emotion. Laughter also increases the oxygen in our body, thus boosting circulation and the sense of well-being of the person laughing.