If you’ve been perusing any of your social media channels this month, you might have noticed that some of them are making some major changes. The most notable of these is Twitter’s announcement that they are considering changing their staple 140-character limit per tweet to 10,000-characters per tweet. If you feel confused, maybe even frightened by this, don’t worry, so are we. Even our favorite New Yorker, Jimmy Fallon, expressed his thoughts about this cringe-worthy change when he showed how the proposed 10,000 Twitter character limit would be a horrible idea by exhibiting three fictional tweets rambling on with nonsense. We’re thinking exactly what you, Jimmy Fallon, and the rest of New York are thinking: too much information. Period. The reason we all adore Twitter is because of its signature limited space. There’s no other social platform that allows for quick, stream of thought writing, that can be simple and concise, provoking, or cleverly contrived.
So why the change? Some experts claim it’s due to Twitter’s doomed future with platforms like Snapchat and Instagram rising in popularity. Others see it similar to the way Twitter’s new CEO Jack Dorsey does, in that this new character limit will offer companies more options to interact with their consumers and provide better customer service. For example: brands will have the potential to use Twitter to digitally address an issue without directing people elsewhere, such as to call centers, links to websites, or having to direct message them for further instruction.
For businesses, this could be a breakthrough. For your average New Yorker reading tweets from other average New Yorkers, this has the potential to be a nightmare.