Massachusetts prefers ‘haha’ to emoji when laughing online
But definitely not “lol.’’
What kind of an online laugher are you? A “haha’’ type of person? Do you favor “lol’’ like the chat rooms of the ’90s? Or are you hip with the times and using emojis?
If you’re like other Massachusetts Facebook users, you’re likely big users of “haha’’ and avoid emojis, at least compared to people from other states. That analysis comes from a deep dive into online laughter from Facebook data scientists late last week.
The report looked at the four most common laughter types – “haha,’’ “hehe,’’ “lol,’’ and emoji – and found that a slight majority of people use “haha’’ to express laughter. About a third of people use emojis, while about one in eight use “hehe.’’ The acronym “lol’’ came in dead last with barely any use among people on Facebook.
The percentage of people who use one of these laughters online.
The Facebook study also examined the popularity of those laughters by state, creating a heat map of the U.S. and its laughter proclivities. The darker the color, the more popular a laughter mode is. (Facebook declined to provide more specific information on state-by-state usage.)
With that in mind, we can see that Massachusetts is very fond of “haha,’’ “hahaha,’’ and its other extensions.
Mahahassachusetts is comparatively a heavy user of “haha.’’
As Facebook found, “haha’’ is more favored by male users. Emoji, meanwhile, is more favored by female and younger users.
But for whatever reason, Massachusetts isn’t big on little yellow smiling faces.
And we’re particularly not fond of the age-old “lol.’’
Finally, Facebook, provided a comparison of laughter uses between some big American cities.
In Boston, more people used “haha’’ than emoji, which puts it in line with cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, and Seattle. Meanwhile, New York and Chicago are flipped in the other direction, with more people favoring emoji than “haha.’’
One thing is definitely for sure: If you want to be normal, don’t use lol.
Gallery: Some cute dogs to make you smile.
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