The sky is blue LOL! SWIDT?

As a savvy netizen, I think I'm relatively current on trends in netspeak.  Also, as a savvy person, I understand the concepts of literal and figurative.  So, I understand that people who write LOL did not necessarily literally laugh out loud.  I get that.  I do, however, feel that using LOL does at a very minimum imply that what has just been written or read, is to some degree, funny.  That's not crazy, right?

So why are there so many people who use it at the end of virtually everything they type?  Do they think it's some kind of fancy internet-only punctuation?  Do they think that LOL stands for something closer to QED?  Or, most horrifying, are they really under the impression that everything is that funny?

For example,

Person 1:  Does anyone know what time the play is tonight?
Person 2:  I think it's at seven lol
Person 1:  Thanks!  lol

Are these two people huffing paint while Facebooking or what?

There's a person who works near me that does this in real life.  I used to think she and her colleagues were having so much fun I was kind of jealous but then I realized that she just laughs at the end of every single sentence.

This is what I imagine when I see a lol infested conversation:

Also, in case you're wondering why I'm able to blog two times in two days: we are in the midst of finals so it's either this or actually grade something (shudder).