280 Characters: A Blessing or a Curse?

Posted on by Taylor Sheehan

For the first time since Twitter was founded, the platform raised the character limit to tweet from 140 to 280 on November 7th for all users. The hashtag #280characters began trending and people wasted no time to share their opinions on the matter. Some were loving more space to tweet, while others (without trying to get too political) feared this gave President Trump too much power and defeated the overall purpose of quick updates.

Users did not think Twitter was for “essays.”

It appeared to feel like an overcrowded and now aimless platform with the update.

And tweeters made useful (and comical) alternative updates while using 280 characters.

On the contrary, those who agreed with 280 enjoyed the freedom to be more expressive and felt it served as a reminder to acknowledge certain topics.

On a more serious note, users pointed out accounts that were making the most of the update, like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for example. This shed a positive light on all of the backlash 280 was receiving.

This makes me think; even though 280 is a lot of space, could it be one of the best platform updates for our future even though users don’t realize it yet?

 

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