Shakespeare wrote in his great play Hamlet, "Brevity（简洁）is the soul of wit." But it seems that not everyone agrees with this.Microblog has canceled its 140-character limit for posts,meaning users can now write as many words as they like.And now Twitter,a US social media site that's similar to Microblog,also announced that it plans to double its character limit from 140 to 280.
Twitter has its reasons for the changes.It's a pain to have to edit your thoughts to less than 140 characters when you have so much to say.And a big problem for English writers is that it requires more space than character-based languages such as Chinese to express the same thing.According to The Atlantic,while the average English-language tweet is 34 characters,a Japanese one,for example,is only 15.
But still,Twitter users don't seem to be happy with the new move.
Our reading habits have changed over time,and we're used to keeping up to date with what's happening in the world by reading just a couple of lines of text.For this，140 characters are more than enough.
"[Microblogs] are almost always faster and more efficient than television,radio,newspapers,or any other source," wrote Dom Knight,a reporter for The Guardian. "It's like gathering in the town square ...in an instant."
Trying to fit your thoughts into a limited space is also a good way to come up with smart comments,which is why microblogs are often where the best humor is found.
For example,during former US President Donald Trump's election campaign in 2016，a Twitter user wrote："If Trump can seriously win the presidency of this nation,I don't want to see a job description with 'experience required' ever again." And another wrote："England：Nothing can be more embarrassing than Brexit.America：Watch this." These tweets expressed people's upset louder and quicker than any long articles ever could.
So perhaps we should pay attention to Shakespeare's words.After all,he only needed 27 characters to make his famous point.
Why does Twitter plan to change its character limit for each post？ ______
A. Twitter users always have a lot to say.
B. Users are not satisfied with the current character limit.
C. More characters are needed when writing in English than in Chinese.
D. Twitter saw that the benefit after Microblog changed the character limit.
What does "this" refer to in the 4th paragraph？ ______
A. People want to know what is happening around the world.
B. People prefer to look through short posts rather than read long articles.
C. People are used to reading short posts in order to get the latest news.
D. People's new reading habits make it hard to read long posts.
What is the advantage of Microblog according to Dom Knight？ ______
A. People can get information which they cannot get from traditional media.
B. It can quickly gather various pieces of information for people.
C. It can make people feel as if they are there and experiencing an event themselves.
D. The posts can be easily understood because the characters in each post are limited.
Why does the author write about the two Twitter posts？ ______
A. To show that the US presidential election attracted more attention than Brexit.
B. To explain how British people and Americans show their sense of humor.
C. To prove that Twitter is a platform where you can express your own opinions freely.
D. To offer evidence that limited characters can inspire smart posts.
What is the author's attitude toward the character limit on social media？ ______
A. It should be lifted because it makes it difficult for people to express thoughts.
B. It should be abandoned because it doesn't fit people's current reading habits.
C. It should be kept as Shakespeare argued that using fewer words is better.
D. It is meaningful because short texts fit people's reading habits and help create the best humor.
