Although it’s since been expanded to 280, Twitter’s initial 140-character restriction (the limit imposed because Twitter was originally conceived as an SMS platform, trivia fans) was designed to make posts short and punchy. Counter-intuitively, however, these bite-size injections of information and opinion can drive users to engage with Twitter for hours at a time.
There are a mind-boggling 6,000 tweets sent every second, for example, while around 250 million people (roughly two-thirds of its total user base) go on Twitter every single day. For young people, there is clearly a risk of compulsive use – and, as today’s #WakeUpWednesday guide explains, that’s not the only pitfall on Twitter that trusted adults
need to stay aware of.
