Twitter Users Divided Over 280-Character Limit for Tweets: Survey

A month after Twitter doubled its 140-character restriction for people to express more in a tweet, users were divided on the new 280-character limit with only 38 percent approving the change, a new survey has found.

According to the survey by London-based market research company YouGov, four in 10 said they liked it more now that tweets could be 280 characters long, while around a third (32 percent) said they preferred it when tweets could only be 140 characters long. The remaining 30 percent were undecided on the change.

The 140-character limit was around since 2006 and became part of Twitter's personality. The new 280-character limit was made available virtually for all users - including for those who tweet in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, and Tamil.

In September, Twitter launched a test with a select group of users that expanded the 140-character limit.

"Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter," the micro-blogging website had said at that time.

During the first few days of the test, many people tweeted the full 280-limit because it was new and novel but soon after, the behaviour normalised.

Only 5 percent of tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only 2 percent were over 190 characters, Twitter had found.

YouGov also found a similar trend. About half (45 percent) preferred 140 character Twitter, while 42 percent liked 280 character Twitter more (13 percent did not have an opinion).