BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT: TWITTER MOVES TO 280 CHARACTERS?

Last week, Twitter blessed (?) a percentage of its users with the ability to compose 280-character Tweets, as opposed to the traditional 140. Although it's only in the test stage at this point, the entire platform is expected to move to 280 characters soon. (By the way, if you're one of of the plebs like me who still has only 140 characters, there is a work around to hop on the #280 train.)

The change was inspired by the differences in the amount of meaning conveyed by individual characters across languages (a sentence takes more characters to express in English than in Mandarin, for example.) You can read more about the reasoning here.

The 140-character limit was Twitter's trademark, integral to their brand, and while 280 characters doesn't sound like a lot, the new, longer Tweets look daunting.

140

280

So far, I'm not a fan and I'm not alone. Twitter already has the thread feature (linking many Tweets together in a chain) for longform ideas, so users aren't limited in any real way by the 140 character limit.

Many users have also pointed to this change as evidence of Twitter's mismanaged priorities. The platform is infamous for abuse, disinformation bots, and the proliferation of neo-Nazis, all of which go largely unchecked. 

So, if you plan on taking advantage of the new, longer limit, I would strongly suggest inserting line breaks in your Tweets, so they don't appear so blocky and dense. (And report the neo-Nazis, please.)

​❤ Bayley