“Snapchat provides perhaps the best direct conduit to millennials, with 41 percent of those 18 to 34 year olds in the U.S. active on the platform. The app is quickly becoming the most preferred social platform compared to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter among millennials.”-Kerry Flynn, Mashable

That sounds about right, at least for me, that Snapchat usage is surpassing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram combined. Since I’ve moved to New York City, I’ve spent my time observing on the subways and almost always you see a group of teenagers laughing, talking, and always having their phone out. I witnessed 3 teenagers a couple of weeks ago, maybe early high school, get on the same train car and almost immediately they started taking ridiculous “snaps” of each other and sending them to everyone on their contact list. I knew they were just doing it for fun to pass the time while they were on their way to their next destination, but it made me feel uncomfortable because I wondered if maybe they were taking “snaps” of me or other passengers in the car and were laughing and poking fun at us and to whom were these “snaps” being sent to. I also wondered where do teens draw the line with their “snaps”? When does it become a situation of pure enjoyment and entertainment, but slowly turns into a new way to cyberbully?

I looked on various news articles to see if there was anything that remotely cast Snapchat in a bad light and what I found was intriguing to see the different views on the new social media app. Leigh Seger from Covenant Eyes: Internet Accountability and Filtering, wrote a damning article about the horrors of Snapchat and how parents don’t have a clue in how it works and what the consequences are for their children, if they don’t use good judgement and intent. Snapchat was born in the spring of 2011, it was immediately coined as the new “sexting app” amongst adolescents due to the nature of sending and viewing photos in a short amount of time of 20 seconds or less, however, unbeknownst to many of the Snapchat users, their contacts could actually save the photo by doing a screenshot or even using another device to take a photo of it and then saved on their phone to be later distributed without the sender’s consent; this has led to instances where semi-nude photos have re-emerged on different platforms and even have been sold for profit (Seger, 2013). Of course, this new quick and sneaky communication app opened the door to a whole new slew of cyberbullying, sexting, and even gaining revenge against and amongst adolescents.

Of course, most parents and educators only look at Snapchat in a negative light and tend to forget that Snapchat could potentially be use for good in meaningful and purposeful ways within the classroom and beyond. Snapchat is trying to change their tune from being a “sexting” app to an app where their users are constantly being informed about breaking news from around the world and giving the power to users to document what they think is newsworthy. Just last week on October 19th-20th, Snapchat ran a 24-hour Live Story, about the attacks on ISIS in Mosul as well as showcasing President Barack Obama addressing the nation as to what was going on over in the Middle East (Flynn, 2016). Snapchat is slowly becoming the preferred way to get quick and unbiased news, that’s one of the main reasons, I, myself, have a Snapchat is because I like how they present the news in short intervals and you can pick and choose what you want to see/hear as well as being a contributor.

A college student from King’s College, Rodolfo Santoyo, was quoted in Mashable saying that he originally downloaded the app for casual communicating back when he was a sophomore in high school, but now realizes Snapchat is a great way for teens to be informed and engaged with what is going on in the world: “The filters and text you can add make the picture more interesting. However, lately I’ve been paying attention to the stories on there. They add content in there because they know teens will see it and start talking about it. Every time there is a good story I hear it from friends” (Flynn, 2016).

I think if we as educators can put the Snapchat to good use in the classroom to teach students the benefits of receiving and creating news, then students would be less incline to use the app in harmful and hurtful ways against their peers. 

Sources:

Flynn, K. (2016, October 21). Snapchat is a camera company with a lot of first-person media to offer. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from http://mashable.com/2016/10/21/snapchat-breaking-news/#KvPtyMDFssqk