A Newer Social Foe: Snapchat

Bleep.

Your phone makes a funny noise that you never heard before this application rolled around. You see that you have a new snapchat. Maybe it's from someone you have a streak with, maybe it's a good friend, someone wanting to get to know you, or maybe it's someone that makes you smile every time you see their name light up on your screen. While snapchat seems cool to just send pictures of what's going on in your life and then have them disappear, I have found that the application is more of a foe than a friend.

Snapchat causes arguments.

People feel left out, uninformed, annoyed, and disappointed at the things people do in their daily lives. Snapchat only enhances this by showing the public everything that an individual is doing in their life from a range of one to ten seconds, either picture or video, depending on what the user decides. While it can be fun to see what other people are doing that you may not necessarily see everyday, it can be a huge problem when you see someone ignoring your phone calls but they have time to post videos of their friend making a fool out of themselves dancing.

Snapchat limits talking.

I never thought that I would have conversations on snapchat, but lo and behold, I find myself talking to others through pictures instead of talking in person or on the phone. I also will use the chat feature that they have to talk to people, rather than calling them or even texting them. This is something that I hate about snapchat. Sometimes my parents will ask if I've talked to someone recently and I just find myself saying, "Well I snapchatted her today." This is not okay. I don't know what's going on in some people's lives that I "talk" to by snapchatting them non-stop, but never really discussing what's happening in life. Usually it's just me making a funny face or only showing half of my profile.

Snapchat isn't a great mode of communication.

I found myself only talking to certain people I loved over break through snapchat, but never actually knowing what was going on. I never talked to them, rather I would just see snippets of their forehead or the landscape in front of them. This is not how I want to live my life. I don't want to experience what other people are doing based off of a picture. I want to experience life in the flesh, not through a screen.

Although I know I sound like a hypocrite, as I will admit I use snapchat regularly and have some streaks over 400 days, it has become somewhat of an unhealthy addiction that needs to be reevaluated, including by me. I know that this is not a healthy way of communication. In fact, it isn't communicating at all. I know some people that use snapchat solely for the purpose of making others jealous or to impress others by keeping a continuous streak of days that you snapchat the same person. After the past few weeks, I've realized how damaging snapchat can be to friendships and that is something I never want to experience again, and never want anyone else to experience.