Remember caution when using increasingly popular Snapchat

Snapchat is one of the most widely used social media apps, particularly popular among teens and young adults; however, while Snapchat is immensely popular, it has also raised concerns, especially regarding its impact on teens. The streak feature, where users send snaps back and forth for consecutive days, can become a game or competition. This can make users obsess over maintaining long streaks, sometimes at the cost of time or energy. 

Hannah Bustamante, physics and chemistry teacher said, “I’ve had Snapchat since 2016 and still to this day really only snap close college friends, my fiance and my sister. It’s boggling to me when I ask some of my students to snap multiples of people in a day, with 25 seeming to be the average. One student even had 210 people, and I barely knew that many people to invite to my wedding.”

Nowadays it feels as if everyone has the app or many people are on it often means there is a social pressure to also be active on Snapchat. Junior Lydia Rusley-Hanesford said, “I just recently got Snapchat October to be in my works groupchat to make it easier to switch shifts and keep up on work drama. I was definitely experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) when I didn’t have the app.”

Senior Emma Batterson said, “I only snap the same five people every day, and I know them and see them every day at school. I enjoy Snapchat because I just recently got this girl’s snap from the robotics team, and it’s been fun to get to know her more from just being in the club.” 

Senior Amelia Tjaden said, “I got Snapchat in 2022 to facetime friends, and something I’ve enjoyed about it is that it saves all your memories that you get to look back on or save them right to your camera roll.”

During covid in 2020, Snapchat received some major backlash when many people were wanting to delete the app saying that it’s not as popular as it once was and is being just another pointless app. Since then Snapchat has bumped up on the popularity scale, but the question still stands: would teens care if Snapchat was deleted or if they had the option to delete it right now would they?

Rusley-Hanesford said, “Snapchat has brought so much more problems and drama in my life recently. I would delete it, but again part of me wouldn’t just because many people have it, and my best friend wouldn’t like it if I did.”

Batterson said, “I’ve had the app for a while, so I wouldn’t delete it for any reason. I like waking up in the morning or just randomly in the day sending a snap to my friends.”

Tjaden said, “would miss my memories and the filters, but there are a lot of apps like it, and since I just snap four people, it would be too big of a deal to me if it was out of my life for good, but I do have a goal of like 1,000 day streak or something crazy like that.”

Remember that staying safe while using Snapchat or any social media platform, especially in the face of potential stigma, involves being mindful of privacy, security and the mental health impact. Set your account to private, adjusting in the privacy settings for who can contact you, view your story or see your location. Only add people you know in real life, and be careful when accepting friend requests from strangers. Just because Snaps disappear after being viewed doesn’t mean they’re gone for good since there is potential to save screen-shotted or shared-beyond-your-control snaps, so take caution when sending snaps to others.