A year after Twitter doubled its character limit from 140 to 280, data shows users are being more polite, using fewer abbreviations, and replying to more tweets.
More Polite Users
The use of polite sentiments is way up since the character limit increase.
Data shows that 54% more tweets use the word “please,” while the use of “thank you” is up 22%.
Fewer Abbreviations
The ability to tweet more characters has led to a decline of abbreviations and an increase of the full-length words.
- Usage of “gr8” is down 36%, while “great” is up 32%
- Usage of “b4 is down 13%, while “before is up 70%
- Usage of “sry” is down 5%, while “sorry” is up 31%
More Replies and Engagement
Replies to tweets are reportedly on the rise, although the exact increase in tweet replies was not provided in the data.
It’s possible that there are more replies because users are asking more questions – 30% more tweets include a question more.
Tweets Are Not Getting Longer on Average
Curiously enough, the character limit increase has not led to longer tweets for the most part.
The most common length of tweets in English is 33 characters, which is actually one less character than before the change.
In fact, only 12% of English language tweets are longer than 140 characters. Just 1% of tweets hit the 280-character limit.
Looking at data across all languages, 6% of tweets are longer than 140 characters.
Here is a collection of tweets that were recently published that support the above statistics.
r u abbreving less rn?
Since the switch to 280 characters a year ago, we've seen an increase in people writing out full words and phrases. pic.twitter.com/pjnfyVmilY
— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) October 30, 2018
All about the please and thank you.
With 280 characters, people are saying 'please' (+54%) and ‘thank you’ (+22%) more.
THANKS!!!!
— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) October 30, 2018
💬💬💬
280 characters later, there are more ? and replies to Tweets. More room, more conversations!
— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) October 30, 2018
Last year, we upgraded tweet length to 280 and guess what? Use of 'please' is up 54% and 'thank you' is up 22%. I love that! Also, people are asking more questions and having more conversations. All this, and the majority of tweets are still under 140. It worked.
— Biz Stone (@biz) October 30, 2018
