Just when you thought you’d finally mastered the meaning of ‘lol’, and how and when to use it properly, the internet lingo has changed again.
In case you didn’t know, Facebook has been conducting analytics research, and a new report into how users express laughter online has revealed that the term ‘haha’ is now the most popular, pushing ‘lol’ from its perch.
Looking at anonymous comments and posts, Facebook’s data team found that ‘haha’ and its variants accounted for 51.4 per cent of humour expressions. Laughter emoji represented 33.7 per cent and ‘hehe’ and its variants accounted for 13.1 per cent of humour expressions. After many years’ standing as the internet’s most recognised acronym, ‘lol’ appeared in only 1.3 per cent of the sampled Facebook text.
Facebook also found a correlation between the types of internet laughter expressions and the demographics most using them. Emoji were found to be most popular with younger internet users and females, while ‘haha’, ‘hehe’ and ‘lol’ were used most by progressively older individuals.
Read more at The Verge.
Are you a ‘haha’, ‘hehe’ or ‘lol’ user? Is Facebook’s findings likely to influence your choice of internet laughter expression?
