Snap, streak, add, repeat. This is Snapchat, a social media platform used for communication between friends. Snapchat is mostly used by teenagers and young adults. The term “snapping” describes sending pictures back and forth to create a “streak” between the people involved. However, the app is also known to both develop relationships and destroy them by adding someone they don’t know on “quick add.” Quick add on Snapchat involves a list of many Snapchat users that can live in various places, and users will have the choice to add either someone they know or a complete stranger.
“It can be used to make new friends, yet I think it’s not helpful in that way because it’s a waste of time,” Landon Streeper (‘27) said. “I think that there’s just so many other ways to talk to people besides [Snapchat].”
Sixty percent of all US teenagers use Snapchat, and forty-eight percent of users include people between the ages of 15-25 according to 25 Essential Snapchat Statistics. Most people use the app as another line of communication or just for fun. A current debate on some social media platforms including Tik Tok, and Instagram. Whether Snapchat is a useless social media app, and if it helps teenagers spark a talking stage for a relationship, or meet someone they may not even know. Also, due to Snapchat existing as a social media platform, it presents itself as having influencers to influence people to be a certain way or follow a social expectation or normality. This could include ‘talking’ to a guy who lives hours away, and having an expectation that the relationship is going to work out in the long run.
“I think [Snapchat] can help connect a lot of people [and help] them find romance,” Roxie Ford (‘27) said. “[The app gets] used a lot for that reason.”
Even the marketing motto says “Less social media. More Snapchat.” Snapchat is necessarily meant to be used for a fun way of communicating with friends. But, it is becoming a dangerous way of communication between young people. Also, Sliding into Instagram DMs can be the same thing as talking to a stranger on social media, because people have the power to change the way of an app and the original morals of it. This results from an act of adding strangers on ‘quick add’, and taking advantage of the disappearing messages, which can include explicit material such as nudity.
“People don’t really text each other anymore,” Boston Dungan (‘27) said. “They just use Snap, so I definitely think Snap has changed over time but it’s still just not good for people and teenagers in general.”
Users use Snapchat in different ways, yet it has mainly evolved into a relationship tool. Though teenagers may find the app useful and fun, it can pose a danger when you do not know the person on the other side of the screen. Due to the app providing a “snap map” that shares your location with your friends with consent, it can cause dangers for people involving stalking and tracking locations.
“Snap is a way to connect with people you don’t know and stay connected,” Isla Smith (‘27) said. “[But] it’s not that helpful because it just doesn’t do anything for you in your life although it can be used very well to start talking [stages].”
Snapchat may have originally been used as a fun way of communicating, yet it has evolved over the years due to teenagers who want to be in a relationship or talking stage. However, most teenagers aren’t aware of the true dangers of talking with a complete stranger they meet online. Students, teenagers, and young adults developed habits to rely on this app for societal comfort, yet it has created an unsafe space through people adding strangers and misusing the app.
