This week’s Baillie Gifford shortlist shows a scope and depth of writing now all too rareAll week,people (by which I mean Twitter users, now uncomfortably close in their own minds to being people in general) have been railing at, and embracing,the social media platform’s act of largesse. An increase from 140 characters per tweet to 280! A doubling of self-expression! Not since Gutenberg, etcetera... or brevity is the soul of wit, or depending on your perspective.
The naysayers had much on their side: an increase in capacity does not inevitably lead to an increase in clarity or quality,particularly when a medium’s USP is held to be its immediacy and directness. And, as Twitter struggles to fight its way free of the extremists, and trolls and vipers who increasingly suck the oxygen from it,the thought of affording more space to them seems masochistic.
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Source: guardian.co.uk