SNAPCHAT: PICTURE THIS
As somebody who loves to send weird pictures to his friends, I was more than amped about the invention of Snapchat! Started by two Stanford students as a class project, this photo messaging application allows you to send photos and videos to friends for a limited amount of time. After that time runs out, the recipient can no longer view your message. The app hit a nerve since its launch in September 2011, with over 50 million “snaps” being sent daily by the end of 2012. With such a hot trend, I decided to conduct a small survey of my friends, who are all 25-year-olds and under, about whether they have Snapchat and what exactly they’re using it for.
Of the friends I surveyed, many of them confirmed that they do, in fact, have Snapchat. This brings up the question, what is this app being used for? While most of them claimed to use Snapchat to send “unflattering” pictures to their friends, a few did admit to sending sexual images through the app. In actuality, there are probably more people who do this but nobody wants to admit what they’re really using it for.
Privacy is becoming a growing concern among my generation and Snapchat, so far, has been the closest app that helps us with this anxiety. My generation is known to share “everything”, but that’s a big misconception –we only appear to be posting everything. Most of the time uploads and photo sharing on social media sites are thought-out and privacy settings with lots of filtering options are set on our profiles like a mathematical formula.
Snapchat’s ability to delete photos in a short amount of time, makes it less dangerous for sending such images but it still doesn’t prevent you from taking a picture of that picture before it gets deleted. Either way, is this app creating a more useful trend? On Monday, CNBC reported that Snapchat is starting to play with the idea of using the application to show short advertisements of brand products.
Snapchat could be onto something here and it will definitely be interesting to see how this idea is developed for other uses, and how my generation will figure out how to game it.
CALEB HEARON, CHILLICOTHE, MISSOURI, AGE: 18
Caleb is a senior at Chillicothe High School, Home of the Hornets! He is involved in Student Council, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Key Club, and of course Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). Caleb is serving National FCCLA as their Vice President of Membership. Student, leader, Young Democrat of America, friend, and human rights champion; Caleb considers himself to be very opinionated and passionate. Politcal awareness, the power youth hold in today’s world, and social matters are all things that Caleb is excited about.
