Sophia Allen
Lantern Staff
In past years, Twitter has been known for its 140-character limit, but now Twitter has decided to test a new feature, allowing some users to have up to 280 characters, twice the amount it has been, in their tweets.
This feature surfaced because of character differences in different languages. While users tweeting in languages such as English and German run out of characters often, users tweeting in languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean do not.
This is not because those users have less to say, but because, as Aliza Rosen says in a post on the Twitter blog, characters in some languages convey more meaning than those in others.
Since the 140-character limit, has been a key component of Twitter since its beginning, users have mixed feelings about the new development.
Sophomore Sydney Harder expressed a negative opinion.
“Some people do not need access to that many characters,” Harder said. “It could be hurtful.”
Freshman Charlotte Smith expressed a different point of view.
“It’s good because it allows you to say more,” Smith said.
Freshman Mikey Burnett expressed similar feelings.
Students interviewed felt that only allowing some users this feature was unfair, but also noted, “The idea to be able to further express yourself sounds great.”
Many students surveyed voiced their concern of using 280 characters, but many also saw the possibilities that could happen if people could create longer tweets. Whether Twitter decides to allow all users to tweet with 280 characters or revert back to 140 characters, there will be people who like and who dislike the decision.