The feature of 'streaks' was introduced to Snapchat in March of 2016 and since then, has been one of the most used features other than stories which were released in October of 2013.
The point of streaks was to show you how many days in a row you had been Snapchatting a particular person back and forth and a lot of people began to use the feature to see how high they could make that number climb, but then it continued to get out of hand.
As the popularity of the streaks features on Snapchat continued to grow, there seemed to be a bit of adrenaline that began to follow behind it. And with this adrenaline came the competitions and the milestones.
All of a sudden people started to not really care about sending actual Snapchats, but about seeing how many streaks they could get going and how high they could make their numbers climb.
People began to Snapchat they hardly even talked to just to put that streak on the screen. It became considered a compliment when you got a lot of streaks going at once - and especially when you started to hit the 100-day mark and continued to climb from there.
Now, I won't say that I never had streaks because then the headline of this article would be a lie, but I eventually hit a point in my life where I had to sit back and ask myself why I was letting something so small essentially consume my life.
I was one of those people that were essentially Snapchatting other people just to see the number on the right side of my screen. There were days I felt stressed because I would forget to send a Snapchat and was afraid that I lost some streaks.
Streaks also led to stress that you had to make it seem like you were doing something and that you weren't just laying in bed all the time. So finally, I got to a point where I said to myself, "what is the point of this excess stress?"
I slowly started to watch my streaks disappear and started to feel a little less stress and pressure. When it comes down to it, it's kind of sad how much we let social media control our lives.
I started to Snapchat people on my own time when I felt the need and began to realize how many streaks I had with people that I don't even talk to, and some I barely know. It was solely for the satisfaction of the streaks. A little bit of social media cleanse here and it is good, and this is where I decided to start but I haven't decided where to go next.