It allows you to share the present moment of your life as if you were there. Your friends can constantly check in to see what you are up to without having to ask you. It’s hilarious, intimate and just plain wrong. Constantly taking selfies with the dog filter or with an added flower crown seems to add entertainment to your life. Most of all, Snapchat creates insane FOMO, causing you to wonder why you aren’t there with your friends.
Being someone who is a self-proclaimed Snapchat addict, I did the unimaginable. I deleted my Snapchat.
After sending over 50,0000 snaps to my friends and keeping up endless streaks, I can now say that I am finally over Snapchat. Don’t get me wrong, Snapchat has its benefits. Companies use it to market their brand, it can be an easy way to reach Millennials with the media that is posted, and it is different from other social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter.
When I first downloaded Snapchat in 2012, it was just an unknown social media app that allowed you to send quick photos to your friends that would instantly disappear. Now, five years later Snapchat has become the most relevant source of social media, growing into a multi-million-dollar company and morphing into a unique platform that has changed from its intended use.
Snapchat has grown into a social media platform that not only allows you to send pictures or videos to friends, but you can have conversations and send cash. Major media platforms are using Snapchat to promote articles and news, and creating their own Stories that you can view to stay up to date with what is happening around the world. Can’t attend that March Madness game? Snapchat has live updates. Want to see what Spring break is like while you are busy studying? Check Snapchat. This has made Snapchat even more addicting than ever, causing you to spend more time on the app than you normally would. In fact, Snapchat has become so addicting that it wants to keep you on the app, not have you leave.
Besides being used for marketing, Snapchat is a common form of communication in the modern era. Snapchat is being used to share everything you see and do, to make other people jealous, and has even become a form of communication when dating. It has become an addiction among many teenagers and twenty-somethings who use it, which has done nothing but increased the popularity and success of the company.
My addiction to Snapchat slowly grew stronger as I became obsessed with sharing the intimate details of my life—where I was at, what was I doing and with whom—because it felt important to share this with my friends. Like everyone who uses the platform, there is a certain enjoyment in sending the perfect snap. Getting just the right caption that matches your ridiculous face, taking a secret video of that crazy guy dancing in public, or posting live from the concert you are attending to show you are having a great time. The point of Snapchat is not to communicate with friends, but it has turned into something more, causing people to constantly want to post about their life on an app for all their friends to see. Now, people use it to share everything about their life—the good and the bad—for the recognition that they are doing something meaningful and exciting with their lives.
Snapchat has changed into an app that is used to make your life seem more amazing than any of your other friends, and let’s be honest, that is addicting. You want to get the perfect snap to add to your Story to show you are having the time of your life while everyone else is at home bingeing Netflix unable to have as much fun as you are. By showing your friends the most intimate details of your life and constantly being connected to them through this app, it causes you to keep coming back for more. You want to post more about yourself and what your life is like rather than living it in the present moment, and you are constantly checking Snapchat comparing your life to your friends based on what they are posting.
I deleted Snapchat because I was addicted to sharing everything about my life and got sucked into the thrill of comparing my life with my friends. I wanted to share every moment of my life and be constantly connected with my friends that I didn’t stop to live in the present moment.
How can an app have so much control over my thoughts and actions? The truth is that an app based on sending photos makes it feel more important than living in the present moment because of the addiction to document everything you are doing. If others see what we are doing, they can compare it to their lives and see that what they are doing isn’t that exciting. It can make you jealous and wish you were there even when you weren’t invited. You feel like you are missing out on opportunities and begin to feel like your life doesn’t compare. But is this the right way to live your life?
An app shouldn’t make you feel like your life isn’t fulfilling and cause you to compare every detail of your life with someone else.
Although I was once addicted to my Snapchat and felt connected to my friends through Snapchat—a 567-day snap streak with a friend, constantly sending and receiving snaps, updating My Story, and viewing the other media on the app—I am over Snapchat. I am done with posting every detail of my life on some app for everyone to see, being so addicted that I can’t enjoy the present moment, and being so distracted that I can’t realize what is important in my life. An addiction has turned into enjoying the experiences I have without feeling the need to document them for the world to see. Snapchat made me so addicted to sharing my life that I forgot how to live it in the present moment, and that is why I am over it.
