Deleting snapchat started as a cleanse following my breakup with my boyfriend. But it turns out that I don’t miss the trending app. My plan was to re-download it after a little time had passed, but I’ve found that I’m much happier without the app and can confidently say I don’t want it back.

I will hand it to Snapchat for producing a popular product that everyone has and is constantly talking about. They’ve created a genius app. It’s how everyone keeps tabs on each other. It’s fun to send a quick picture or video with a funny caption to your friends and it’s a more casual form of communication than texting. You can send things to people who are more on the acquaintance level— people who would think your snap is funny, but it’d be weird to individually text them a picture of it— and that’s because the picture you’re mass sending that you want everyone to see is not actually that important.

I’ve found that while Snapchat stories are fun— they’re meaningless. There are the people that post on their story every day, updating everyone on their ordinary day to day activities (but let’s be honest, those are the stories none of us watch anyway— maybe only when we’re really bored in class and have already run through all the interesting stories, instagram posts and Facebook newsfeed). However, for most people, Snap stories are for making yourself look cool. We post on our story when we’re doing something cool— at a concert (posts 20 videos, on vacation [look how posh I am]) or doing something that makes us look like we have a really exciting daily life for the ultimate goal of making all our “snapchat friends” jealous. I found myself doing this and I don’t like the idea of doing things for the satisfaction of showing off to others. I should be enjoying the concert I’m at, I shouldn’t have to show or prove to other people that I’m having fun. I find the idea of making our personal lives so public, that is so prominent in my generation, to be unsettling and unnecessary.

Additionally, we are no longer living in the moment because we are constantly looking at life through our iPhone camera. Now that I don’t have Snapchat, I find myself using my phone less and it’s a feeling of relief. I no longer stop three times on my walk to class to take a picture of something I can add a funny caption to and send to my friends as an inside joke. Yes all of that is fun, but it is unnecessary. It was weird at first, not having the app. I found myself thinking I should snap this to so and so and then realizing I couldn’t because I deleted the app. But now I don’t think about it as much and I don't see "not snapping” as a “missed opportunity” because if there truly is a funny story attached to whatever it is I felt the need to snap, I can just tell my friends later. The constant need to snap throughout the day is time consuming and unimportant.

Lastly, Best Friends and Snap Streaks confuse us on the status and validity of an actual relationship. Are you really dating if you don’t have the pink heart and a 100 day streak??

The streaks. These are too much pressure. It doesn’t mean your extra super BFFs if you have a 365 day snap streak. I have one friend who loves Snapchat streaks and another friend who’s not an avid Snapchatter and intentionally sabotaged the streak between the two of them because it was too much pressure. It leads to people sending pointless snaps that are of a wall and say “streak” just to keep the streak alive. I used to do it, as everyone hops on the bandwagon, and it’s an unhealthy and unnecessary obsession.

The best friend emojis are worse than the streaks, especially for relationships. If there is someone you like, have a thing with, or are currently dating, the emojis make you stupidly question the validity of your relationship and/or overanalyze what you are and what you mean to each other. Being each other’s #1 best friend for 2 months denoted by the iconic pink heart means nothing and it doesn’t make your relationship less valid if you’re not even in each other’s best friends. It does not mean your crush doesn’t like you back or is snapping a bunch of other people instead of you if you don’t even have the yellow heart. That is all ridiculous. And I think a lot of us realize that. But because Snapchat is so popular and everyone uses it, I think it’s always in the back of our minds that “we have to get the pink heart back! Otherwise we’re losing.” When, in reality, the emojis don’t actually say anything about your relationship or friendship.

For all of these reasons, it is very liberating not to have Snapchat. It sounds strange, but if feels like this burden has been lifted— the burden of social obligation. Sometimes I feel a little left out when my friends are talking about so and so’s snap from earlier today but then I remember that I’m not really missing out. Nothing on Snapchat is so important that I wouldn’t hear about it otherwise. I also remember how good I feel not having it, so at the end of the day, it doesn't bother me that I am probably the only college student who doesn’t have snapchat. I’m quite happy without it, and as of now I have no intention of re-downloading it. I do think Snapchat is a great app, made by clever people who understand how our generation operates. I just don’t like the ramifications attached to it and that is why I am happier without it.