Snapchat has become a popular communication tool among people – especially teenagers and young adults. In 2017, 70% of young adults ages 18-24 were using Snapchat and 41% of people ages 25-34 were using Snapchat (Burns, 2017). This new and unique way of communicating is changing the way we form, maintain, and end relationships. Snapchat might be increasing the amount of communication among us, but is it increasing the quality of our relationships?
Teenagers are in constant communication with one another, sending images of their surroundings back and forth with no text and little thought behind the images. Many teenagers also maintain daily Snapchat communication with their friends simply to maintain their ‘Snapchat streaks.’ Snapchat streaks count the number of consecutive days a pair of friends sends each other images on Snapchat. Looking at a teenager’s list of Snapchat streaks might indicate that they have a lot of close friends that they communicate with consistently, but Snapchat does not maintain relationships in the same way as face to face communication.
When I talked to teenage and young adult Snapchat users, they told me they used Snapchat to maintain relationships, but they had varying success. One teenager used Snapchat to maintain a long-distance romantic relationship and said, “We used Snapchat because we were so far apart, and it made it easier to feel like we were together.” The teenager also explained that Snapchat only temporarily helped maintain their relationship, and it ended shortly after it started. Another young adult who I talked to said she used Snapchat to communicate with a friend who lived far away but then deleted Snapchat and reflected, “After I deleted Snapchat we didn’t communicate very often. We are still friends though. We still see each other and talk in person when we can.” She did not think Snapchat actually helped her friendship. All of the teenagers and young adults I talked to find some value in Snapchat for their relationships, but it did not usually maintain their relationships long-term.
Is Snapchat just a fun way to connect with friends or is it completely changing the way we form and maintain relationships?
You're so right about how people younger than us use Snapchat WAY differently than people our age do. Do people gain any satisfaction from receiving a blurry picture of the grass with no text from someone, simply to maintain their streak? It seems like an annoying burden to me...it's like "Ope it's 11:55pm, better take a photo of my dark bedroom and send it to this acquaintance to maintain our streak." Very fascinating area of research.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic to research, and I wonder if there will be a lot more research in the future, because of how much we use it as a new way of "communication".. The generational differences are fascinating to look at, and how people use snapchat. It would be interesting to also see how updates on social media websites effect the ways we use them. I remember being able to see other people's best friends, and how that changes the way we communicate too!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of friends and Snapchat, I feel as though increasingly I end up keeping different forms of social media because they are the way that a certain group of friends communicates the most. Is it possible that as social media gets older and more and more are added to the pot, we will see groups form of different people who like one social media over them all? Will those groups be formed around generations or groups of society like the rich, the poor, those in business fields, those in art fields and such?
ReplyDeleteThe concern I have with Snapchat is this, it is deceptively impersonal. It makes you feel as if you are closer to someone because there is a visual component and the communication can be fairly consistent as we have seen from snap streaks. However, the temporary nature and text constrictions does not allow for a ton of self disclosure which means that true interpersonal connections are not happening. We have discussed in class the popularity of Snapchat among-st the classes below us and I worry that it is preventing them from having real personal connections with their Snapchat friends. And what happens if that becomes the norm?
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