Neuroscientists, biologists and philologists are investigating wether laughing virtually retains the ability to release endorphins, reduce stress, and promote social bonds, as it does when done in person.

In real life, an adult laughs about 15 times a day. However, if we could read all their online interactions, we might think they were a clown, a maniac, or a child (who laugh around 400 times a day). The crying-laughing emoji 😂 is the most used in Apple, Facebook, and across various platforms. Everyone on the internet claims to be «laughing out loud» all the time. If this were true, peak hours on the subway would be a carousel of laughter, rather than silent individuals buried in their phones. Rather than amusing, it would be a terrifying sight. Thankfully, we don’t have to take everything said on the internet literally. We might be exaggerating. According to a piece by professors Benjamin Nicki and Christopher Muller in The Conversation, there’s an 85% chance that a virtual conversationalist will respond with the crying-laughing emoji to any remotely funny comment. A study from Columbia University analysed 45,000 text messages from young adults: 14% contained the acronym LOL (laughing out loud). Another study from the American Speech journal noted that this expression had come to be used «as a signal of the speaker’s involvement, much like one might say ‘mm-hm’ in the course of conversation. Many experts agree that LOLs, laughter, and 😂 emojis transcend humour to express something more. Laughter in real life releases endorphins, relieves stress, and helps to create bonds between people. It’s an evolutionary advantatge and plays a role in other social animal species. But there are few studies that analyse wether its virtual counterpart has the same effect. This is increasingly important as memes have replaced spoken jokes and many jobs are now remote, with the only interaction with colleagues taking place in a WhatsApp group. In recent years, we’ve moved our conversation online. Oral words have transformed into written ones, losing some information (intonation, accent, etc.) but maintaining their essence and meaning. The same hasn’t happened with laughter, a different form of expression that involves other neural mechanisms, arises spontaneoulsy in a social context, and is difficult to translate to paper or screen. Yet, as soon as we open our phone or computer, we can’t stop laughing. Laughter is one of the few sounds we use to communicate before speaking, along with the crying and screaming. It’s also evolutionarily older than language. Even before the first hominids invented words, they were laughing together. Laughter isn’t executive to humans. Rats laugh, meerkats laugh, great apes do it in a way very similar to ours. Neuroscientist Michael Brecht from Humboldt University in Berlin has been studying how this laughter forms in animals for years. His team points to the periaqueductal grey matter, a group of neurons located around the midbrain, as published in a study in the Neuron journal. «Vocalizations like laughter are very important in play» explains Brecht. When animals plays, laughter coordinates and directs the process. It serves as an acknowledgement of humorous intent. It marks the difference between a fight and a game; a chase and a tag. This also works with humans. Laughter turns a politically incorrect comment into a joke, it’s the intent that disarms a threat. Perhaps that’s why, in the online environment, where we’re bereft of a non-verbal-context-of smiles, intonations, and looks-it’s more necessary to signal the humorous intent of our words. Brecht also believes that emojis and onomatopoeias serve to channel humour. «We humans have this ability for symbolism, and I think we get a lot out of symbols», he says. Let’s not forget that humour has a social component, and seeing-or reading-that another person is laughing can be contagious. It’s 30 times more likely that laughter will occur in the company of others. Perhaps that’s why various studies have found that people tend to laugh more when talking with friends than when watching TV or reading books alone. This is something that television producers also know. «That’s why, when we watch comedy series, they introduce canned laughter every time there’s a joke,» explains Brecht. «It’s surprising, but it works, it helps people laugh.» A study published in the journal Current Biology assured that even bad jokes were funnier if they were underscored acoustically with canned laughter; but for this contagion effect to work, they had to sound spontaneous, authentic. Something similar happens in online conversations. Laughter is universal, unless you try to express it in writing. «There’s usually always a similar pattern, it consists of a repetition, but it varies a lot between languages», explains Lezandra Grundlingh, a literature expert from the University of South Africa who has researched the implications of written laughter in different languages, in an email exchange. «This repetition can consist of vowels of and consonants [hahaha in English; jajaja in Spanish; xaxaxaxa in Greek], a repetition of consonants only [kkkkk in Portuguese; wwwww in Japan], or a repetition of numbers [555 in Thailand or 233 in China]. These types of repetition are used to imitate the sound of laughter,» the expert points out. But the way we laugh on the internet not only tells us where we’re from. It also gives a clue about our age. «Like many aspects of languages, the use of emojis, acronyms, and written forms of laughter is constantly evolving,» explains Grundlingh. According to analysis of 700 million comments on the English-speaking forum Reddit, the expression LOL went from representing 30% of laughs in 2009 to 60% in 2019: LMAO (another acronym for an expression that could be translated as laughing my ass of) has also increased, albeit less drastically, while the traditional hahaha has suffered a slight drop, going from just over 30% of online laughs in 2013 to not reaching 19% in 2019. In recent months, TikTok videos have gone viral of Generation Z lamenting millennials’ use and abuse of the crying-laughing emoji. Among younger people, the skull, is used as a graphic reflection of the expression I’m dying of laughter. «The use of specific forms of communication is definitely linked to specific age groups. This underlines the link between language and identity. People who continue to use expressions that we might now considered outdated do so because it forms part of their linguistic identity in a particular language», says Grundlingh. Barbara Plester is a professor at Auckland University and co-author of the book Laugh out Loud: A User’s guide to Workplace Humor. She investigates laughter from a cognitive and behavioural perspective, especially its role in work environments. According to her research, those who know how to tell a good joke are often considered more competent at work. «Humour helps to relieve tension and stress. It also helps to strengthen bonds with work colleagues and can even be used to safely express resistance to a boss’s order or directive», explains Plester. For this researcher, humour often moves on the edge of what is socially acceptable, so in a work context » it can offend and annoy colleagues». In these cases, the fact that it’s a joke can help to defuse the situation. However, the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not is very thin and can vary greatly depending on the culture of the workplace.