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

2. Ignores Multiple Uses Of Favourites

One of the best things about the "favourites" feature on Twitter was its versatility. The stars could be used to mark out genuine favourite tweets, bookmark interesting articles to read through later or simply acknowledge a reply from someone in a conversation in lieu of a reply. Whilst it is still theoretically possible to use the new "likes" feature in the same way, the heart symbol makes several of these uses problematic. For instance, as presenter Lauren Laverne commented, very few people will feel comfortable marking a particularly horrifying news story to read later by clicking a glittery heart. In fact, it would be downright appropriate to do so. In the case of this use for the feature, the star symbol €” identical to the bookmark symbol in many web browsers €” was ideal. The heart symbol also feels out of place for the purpose of simply acknowledging replies. Whilst a favourite had no emotion attached to it, the same is not true of a heart. Marking a reply with a heart signals a level of personal approval that simply wasn't there before. The same aspects of the heart symbol that made it so appealing to Twitter, according to their announcement post, make it a wholly inappropriate replacement for the incredibly usefully favourites function.