When you think of Twitter what’s the first thing you think of? It’s probably Twitters well-known 140-character limit, which is the defining characteristic of the social platform. That may change.
Twitter is aware that sneaky Twitter users have always employed services like TwitLonger, which turns your too-long-for-Twitter messages into a photo, to get around the character limit. The company has also admitted that the 140-character limit is and was always arbitrary. It’s based on the 160-character limit SMS, which itself is little more than arbitrary. SMS’ limited was decided based on Friedhelm Hillebrand’s discovering that his random sentences averaged under 160-characters and so does the typical postcard. He figured, since that’s the case, it must be enough to get a person’s thoughts across succinctly.
Realizing that its decision was arbitrarily decided using an arbitrary decision as a guideline and that English is one of many languages where users are forced to regularly edit their thoughts into the limit, Twitter has decided to test out a longer limit: 280-characters. Now don’t go rushing to Twitter in excitement or disappointment. This is only a trial and you most likely weren’t chosen, so you get to keep the 140-character limit for the foreseeable future.
The 280-character limit’s future is also in question, so you may never get the opportunity to use it. This isn’t the first time the company has flirted with a longer character limit. Can you imagine a world where tweets can contain 10,000 characters? At approximately 3 pages, that’s more than many high school essays. However, Twitter seriously considered making the change last year. Part of the reason that change wasn’t made is the same reason Twitter is struggling to justify the 280-character limit.
Currently, Twitter is attempting to explain the change with inherently contradictory statements that signal an identity crisis. In its blog post, the company stated, “Twitter is about brevity. It’s what makes it such a great way to see what’s happening. Tweets get right to the point with the information or thoughts that matter. That is something we will never change.”
If that’s the case, why did Twitter’s definition of brevity just get longer? Only time will tell if users adjust to this change or Twitter is forced to scrap it and return to the drawing board for the next Twitter innovation.
