Purpose of Snapchat?

Snapchat

5/29/19

Throughout middle school, I used snapchat as my main source of communication with my friends. I used it so often and I still don’t really understand why. My main reason to be on snapchat was to keep my streaks which is purposeless. I can’t understand why I was so dumb to think that I had to keep streaks with people who I rarely event talk to in order to stay social. I remember bragging to my sister about how many streaks I had and thinking she was lame for not having as many. First of all, I’m glad I made it through this stage in my life and now understand how to maintain my friends without sending a black screen to them to keep a stupid number next to their name. I think this need to keep as many streaks as possible was a result of wanting to fit in with everyone else. I never questioned what I did because everyone was doing it and I thought those who didn’t were the ones who stuck out.

I still use snapchat daily, but I still don’t know the purpose of it. I like to talk to my friends through it and seeing what they’re doing, but I don’t think it is necessarily good or healthy for me. A majority of the time I am watching people’s stories where they post them hanging out with their friends, how much homework they have, what new shoes they got, what they are eating, or literally anything they feel like. This is where I start to have problems with snapchat. I am guilty of posting on my story once in a while, so I’m not dissing it, but rather trying to understand why. Why do we all like to brag about our lives and show people how lucky we are to have this or do that, etc. What do we get out of looking into other people’s personal lives. I honestly think stories often make us feel worse about ourselves because we are comparing our lives to theirs. In reality, we don’t know what their life is really like. Just because we see a ten second video of them having fun doesn’t mean they don’t struggle or have any problems. Of course we aren’t going to go post us having a bad day (although some do) because we want others to think our lives are great. I think this is an aspect of media that needs improvement. I don’t think it is a problem with snapchat, but rather a problem with our society as a whole and how we choose to interact with each other: by comparing.

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