Raising Digitally Responsible Youth

SOCIAL MEDIA APPS TO KNOW Snapchat (“Snap”)

Since its release in 2011, Snapchat has remained one of the most popular social media applica�ons that our youth are using to communicate and share their digital lives. With over 293 million daily ac�ve users worldwide and over 5 billion Snaps created every day 7 , Snapchat is the de facto medium of communica�on for students in grades 6 -12. The reason for its popularity is that it turned text communica�on into a visual experience that allows users to send disappearing photos that leave behind (almost) no evidence and for the most part, don’t become part of a youth’s digital footprint. The founda�onal feature that makes Snapchat desirable to youth is the disappearance of photos/videos that vanish a�er they have been opened. Users can set a viewing �me of as litle as 1 second up to 24 hours a�er which, once viewed, it will be deleted from the recipient’s device and as the company claims, from Snapchat’s servers 8 . Snapchat allows users to take s�ll photos, record short videos, add text, and create drawings to send to a personalized, and typically private, list of friends. However, nothing stops the recipient from taking a screenshot or using a different device to take a picture or the image or screen recording of the video. Note: if you take a screenshot using the recipient device, Snapchat will no�fy the sender that you’ve taken a copy. Despite news headlines that suggest Snapchat is “just a sex�ng app” or one that is only used to send nude photos, this is not the case and represents a very small usage of the app.

Video by YouTube user Simple Alpaca.

7 Snapchat Demographic Stats: How Many People Use Snapchat in 2023? (backlinko.com) 8 Do Your Snapchats Really Delete A�er Being Opened? - PSafe Blog

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