Using Snapchat to Chat With Friends

Snapchat was launched in 2011 with a bright yellow and happy emoticon. This is an app that anyone can download with no cost at all. On the surface, Snapchat is just another way to contact friends and update friends on what users are doing through posting “stories.” More than 158 million people use Snapchat every day to communicate with friends. Once a photo is sent, the receiver has a time limit set by the sender before the photo “self-desrtucts.” Subscribers can send a 1-second expiration to a no expiration photo.

This app allows people to put a time limit on their photos, so the fear of having embarrassing photos on the internet forever, is gone; unlike sending messages or photos other ways where it is out there forever.

Snapchat was originally made for younger people but it has now started to attract older adults. 40 percent of users are aged 18 to 34 but now, over half of Snapchat’s new users, are older than 25. Snapchat is potentially a good thing so people can talk to each other in more ways than just sending a text message.

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Snapchat’s strengths are its interactive nature and the it puts into simple pictures, events, and advertisements. Once the app is successfully dowloaded, users take a photo and can add captions, stickers, or even doodle on the photo. Snapchat has filters as well that subscribers can put on their faces to be cute or funny.

If a subscriber were to take a video with certain filters on the screen or their face, it can also change the tone in the noises or voices in the videos.

These filters make it fun and interactive all of the time. The programming put into this app is amazing. Also, instead of having to manually add friends by hand, Snapchat can be linked up with contact lists and even beyond a users contact list. Snapchat is a great resource for companies in events, music, entertainment, and products, typically targeting younger audiences. That audience is both a pro and a con. As the competition with social platforms like Instagram and Facebook, Snapchat is much more transitory. This app has a page called “Discover” where Snapchat users can view and understand events, celebrity trends, and to compile marketing research for influencers. Popular channels featured on Discover are MTV, BuzzFeed, and Cosmopolitan.

But, just like every app, there has to be a negative side and Discover can be a negative side to Snapchat. Discover has the potential to being negative because more than half of these channels have sexually oriented content. In California, there was a lawsuit filed against Snapchat that cited offensive content found through Discover. Another downfall of Snapchat would be that it does not save pictures sent. Parents who monitor their children’s smartphone usage, it may raise some concerns that these photos do not get saved. Photos do disappear after they are sent and opened, but users do have the ability to screenshot. Snapchat notifies the sender if the receiver took a screenshot of their photo, so normally the receiver does not screenshot because of the fear of getting in trouble with the sender.

Except, if the receiver knew the message was coming, they can take a photo of their screen using a different phone or camera and the sender would not be aware. Along with this, Snapchat has the temptation for teens to fall into “sexting” because senders have the power of sending anyone, anything of themselves. But as stated previously, a snapchat disappearing is not at all an absolute certainty. Parents should think about having a serious one-on-one with their children before being introduced to Snapchat. Apps like Snapchat needs to remind parents that they need to pay closer attention to their children’s smartphone use and monitor them more heavily, which would prevent sexting, cyberstalking, cyberbullying and other “dark side” problems with teens. Enough of the downside of Snapchat, because this app is more positive than not.

On this app, if you receive something not appropriate or insulting, users can block other users and give a specific reasoning as to why and Snapchat could reach out to those users and address them. Snapchat is supposed to be a fun and an engaging app when used correctly. This app obviously works very sufficiently when all parties have access to their smartphones all of the time. It is always important to remember that all recipient parties will have the access to respond quickly enough to see their messages. It is also very important to always use Snapchat for its intended purpose. This app is a beautiful way to communicate in different ways, teens and younger adults, should not abuse it. Snapchat is awesome!