5 Reasons Twitter's New Heart Symbol Is A Terrible Idea

4. Too Personal

Twitter is perhaps the least personal of all of the major social networks. The majority of profiles are left unlocked, with tweets available for anyone to peruse at their leisure. There's an emphasis on discussion and debate rather than friendship, which suited the ambivalence of a star symbol pretty well. That's not the case for the heart, which has intimate connotations of love and relationships. These are connotations that don't fit particularly snugly with the discussion forum nature of Twitter. The heart is simply too personal to work in the Twitter environment. The concepts of hearts and "likes" are far more at home on websites like Facebook and Instagram, which tend to encourage more personal relationships than those of Twitter followers. It's odd to see Twitter veer so solidly off course in its presentation of its users, suggesting a concern about the popularity of other networks with a more personal choice. Twitter does what it does very well. What it does, though, is not a personal touch.