By Celene Sakurako
Hallelujah! Twitter has announced that it’s officially increasing its tweet limit from 140 to 280 characters, to make it easier for users express themselves through tweets without “cramming.”
We’re expanding the character limit! We want it to be easier and faster for everyone to express themselves.
More characters. More expression. More of what’s happening.https://t.co/wBpYdy1K40
— Twitter (@Twitter) November 7, 2017
According to the 280 character-limit test run last September, the doubling of characters showed positive results. Users were happier, as they no longer needed to cram their thoughts to make it fit into the 140 character limit, and it also increased engagement a.k.a. more Likes, Retweets, @mentions, Followers for those who used the whole 280 characters.
As for concerns revolving the new 280 character limit slowing down the system or overcrowding your feeds, Twitter also found out in their test run that only 5% of tweets were longer than 140 characters and only 2% were over 190 characters. Thus, the new 280 character limit is unlikely to change much.
Just make sure that your country settings are off Japan, Korea, and China, as the increased character limit will not be affecting the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese language, where space limitations isn’t an issue.