Twitter users are learning to be more polite — and it could be down to last year's 280-character update

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• A study of Twitter since the character limit increased from 140 to 280 has found that users are changing their behaviour.
• According to the study, users are now much more inclined to use the words "please" and "thank you".
• They're also beginning to ditch abbreviations and are asking more questions.

A study of Twitter since the character limit increased from 140 to 280 has found users are now much more inclined to use the words "please" and "thank you".

Apparently, they're also starting to ditch abbreviations and are asking more questions.

Twitter was roundly mocked last year for finally caving in and breaking the one rule that made it different from all other social media platforms, but it said it made the change because it wants every person around the world to express themselves more easily.

Here's what @TwitterData has noted in the year since the change:

People are saying "please" and "thank you" more.

Abbreviations are being used less frequently.

The number of Tweets with a question mark ("?") has also increased by 30% and overall, tweets are receiving more replies.

While this data is for tweets written in English, the findings are consistent across the world in the seven languages Twitter analysed.

Surprisingly, the average length of tweets actually shrank after the 140-character limit was upped to a 280-character limit, from 34 characters to 33 characters.

Just 6% of tweets globally are spilling over the 140 limit (12% of English tweets), and only 1% of all tweets actually hit the 280-character limit.

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