Watching people retweet Trump in real time is both mesmerizing and depressing

One hundred and sixty-two thousand retweets. Two hundred and eighty-nine thousand likes. Donald Trump's tweets routinely garner engagement on such a scale that it's hard to really understand what any of those numbers actually mean. 

That just changed. 

A new Twitter feature, announced in a June 15 blog post, displays retweets and likes in real time as they come in — and oh boy is it both simultaneously totally captivating and super depressing. 

Here's the deal: When clicking on a tweet in the past, users were shown the number of retweets, comments, and likes the tweet had at that specific time. Wanted to check if the count grew? If you were on a smartphone, you'd have had to navigate out of the tweet and tap back in. Basically, you had to refresh the tweet to see any growth.  Read more...