When I see a hilarious comment, post or chat message from a friend on Facebook, I usually express my laughter with "hahaha" followed by an emoji, which according to the company is the most common "e-laugh" on the social media platform.
According to data collected in a week, at least 51.4 percent people use "haha", 33.7 percent use emoji, 13.1 percent use "hehe" and the rest, i.e. only 1.9 percent prefers "LOL" that stands for 'Laughing Out Loud' in comments and posts on Facebook.
"We analyzed de-identified posts and comments posted on Facebook in the last week of May with at least one string of characters matching laughter. We did the matching with regular expressions which automatically identified laughter in the text, including variants of haha, hehe, emoji, and lol," says the research done by the company.
The research further revealed that the usage of e-laughing depends a lot on the age group and gender.
"The most common laugh is haha, followed by various emoji and hehe. Age, gender and geographic location play a role in laughter type and length: young people and women prefer emoji, whereas men prefer longer hehes," the research said.
Facebook was prompted to conduct this research after The New Yorker journalist Sarah Larson published an article, in which she mentioned that the youths have adopted hehe as the latest e-laughter.
However, the research by Facebook showed a different trend. According to the company's data, hahas have become more common among, particularly among the age group of 13 to 70. And not just haha, it has other forms toom, such as hahaha, hahahaha and hahhaa.
"Ms. Larson discusses the emergence of the peculiar hehe, which is "poised upon us by the youth." Are the hehes really a more youthful expression than hahas? The data say: not so! We found that across all age groups, from 13 to 70, the most common laughs are still haha, hahaha, hahahaha, and only then followed by hehe," the research said.
With the research, Facebook proved that hahas has kicked out LOL from the e-laughter league and hehe stands far behind. But what according to you is most preferable form of expressing laughter on social media platforms or on chats?
