blah blah blah blah. And more blah. That is what social
media has become nowadays. More or less. There are still some intelligent
conversations, particularly on Twitter. But most of the time things that people
say on Twitter or Facebook are unnecessary. They don't add to anything, except
noise. Now, Twitter is making a change to its character limit, which is one of
its core features. Instead of forcing people to say whatever they want to say
in 140 characters, Twitter will now allow people to say stuff in 280
characters.
Here is what one of the product managers at Twitter wrote:
"We want every person around the world to easily
express themselves on Twitter, so we're doing something new: we're going to try
out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is
all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean)... We understand since many of you
have been Tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140
characters - we felt it, too. But we tried this, saw the power of what it will
do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint."
In other words, now you have double the number of characters
to post your tweets. In other words, Twitter users can now troll people,
meaninglessly rant, abuse, threaten, misinform or share irrelevant information
in 280 characters instead of 140. Ain't it swell? The US president Donald Trump
can now not only threaten nuclear war through his tweets but can also starkly
tell the world the damage a 'Fatboy' will do when unleashed. Ain't it, swell!
Your favourite celebrity can now not only talk about the new
year bash they attended and the selfies they took but also about what they ate
and who regurgitated what gossip. That guy with 20,000 followers can now not
only use the latest brand hashtag and earn Rs 500 per tweet but can also pimp a
service or product by detailing its 5 best features to you. That
"nationalistic, proud" person can now not only abuse that journalist
she doesn't agree with by calling him a "presstitute" but can also
add a few words about his father and mother.
Okay, that is a very cynical way of looking at things. But
then we Twitter users, the old ones, those of us who have been using it for the
last five, even 10 years, are mostly the cynical ones. We have also seen in the
last five years how the nature of Twitter conversations has changed. We have
seen how Twitter, from being the platform which was the best and quickest way
to get right and relevant information, has turned into a place full of noise.
It was once the town square of the world. It is now a cacophonous baazar.
Earlier, there was wit and brevity in tweets. It still
exists in many instances. But now the meaningless chatter drowns most of it.
The wit in tweets pales in front of the rage that flows on the Twitter of 2017.
The information is drowned in misinformation. Facts get pushed into a corner by
fallacies. These are the trolls that rule Twitter these days and it's abuse
that permeates Twitter conversations now.
Twitter says we need more space to write longer tweets. For
what? To rant more. To abuse more. It says 280 characters will help users
express themselves better. But has it seen how majority of its users express
themselves with 140 characters?
I feel we need less. We need to tweet less. We need to say
less, because there really isn't much to say. We don't need to talk more. We
don't need to add more to the noise that Twitter conversations have become.
Twitter, of course, disagrees. It believes we need to blah blah blah more,
which is not exactly wrong because it makes sense for Twitter. However, it
doesn't make sense for Twitter users.
