Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms that is used by younger generations, starting as early as in middle school to early elementary school. The app utilizes unique features such as picture and video sharing (the “snaps”) and chats that automatically delete after a full 24 hours if they are not saved. Users enjoy the app’s Snapscore feature as a way to keep connected with friends, and sometimes, even people that they don’t speak to other than a daily snap back and forth each day. In what feels like the minority, I have chosen to quit using this app religiously, due to a few reasons
One of the biggest reasons why I chose to not only stop using the app, but also silencing the app itself, was because of the amount of notifications that I was getting every single day. I remember being so overwhelmed to respond to all of the notifications, especially as a person who prefers to keep a clean home screen. Snapchat’s easy culture of just sending a shoulder, forehead, or part of the ceiling makes it so easy for people to respond, often without saying a word. The notifications piled up, and when I got around to opening them, they were useless pictures of someone’s ceiling. I started to resent people sending me such useless notifications, and I felt like I was wasting my time opening and responding to them. The reality of the situation became that there is absolutely nothing that Snapchat can do, that texting cannot do, and I preferred the less stressful text message to the Snapchats.
Another reason why I hated keeping up with the notifications, was because there was such a heavy obligation to keep up with the Snap streaks themselves. With some friends I had a streak ranging from 300-800 days, and for a long time I couldn’t come to terms with ending those streaks, because it felt like a breakup in a way. There was so much pressure to respond, and maintain the streak, and some of my friends even suggested I give out my Snapchat password to other people in order to maintain the streaks. The obligation to continue this quickly became overwhelming, and I grew more and more anxious to be done with them as time went on.
One of the appeals of Snapchat is to send pictures back and forth, it’s basically the claim to fame for the app. However, opening the app to the camera could become discouraging at times, when I wasn’t expecting the camera, or was having a bad hair day. I felt pressured to send pictures of myself that I thought looked nice to my friends, and on days that I couldn’t get the right angle to do so, I would feel bad about my appearance, and hesitate to send pictures of my face to the people I was in contact with. Over time, I started to realize that this was having a significant impact on my mental health, and my perception of myself. The reality of becoming self-conscious with my appearance started to outweigh the obligation to keep up with those stressful streaks.
Another feature of Snapchat is that people use “Snap Stories” to post what they’re up to, and to brag about the things they do, food they eat, and people they’re with. These stories can be filtered so that only a certain number of people that you follow can see, and you can have more than one snap story to post on. I’m a person that likes to click through all the things that are available to me when I’m using social media, and that includes these Snap stories. As I continued to click through them, I realized that I would feel left out, or even that my life wasn’t exciting enough, because I wasn’t up to as much stuff as the people that I followed. I didn’t like feeling like that, or how I began to compare myself and my life to the glamorized version of my friend’s lives that they chose to share with the world. While I was conscious that social media was (and is) a highlight reel, I didn’t always feel that way in the moment when I saw someone had been to a new place that I would like to go to, or had hung out with a lot of people I knew without inviting me. I ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep up with Snapchat if it made me feel left out and lost in my own life, and that helped lead to my decision to stop using the app.
Now, I’m not saying that I went ahead and fully deleted the app, because I didn’t. I just stopped using it religiously, and stopped using it as a method to keep contact with the people I care about. I figure that if they really want my attention, or need to speak to me, they can text me on my cell phone number. As for actually keeping the app, I have two reasons for doing so. One is that throughout the two years that I did use the app, I saved so many memories in Snapchat’s photo album, that aren’t on my actual photo albums on my phone. While I don’t use the app, I do cherish those memories, and I’m not looking to delete them on a whim.
The other reason for keeping the app, is there are a few group chats that I was added into, that don’t exist out of the app. While I don’t participate in them often, I do like to be able to keep up with what those people are doing, even if I’m not actually receiving the notifications when they’re texting in those chats. Unfortunately, the culture that we exist in today, uses apps like Snapchat to stay in contact with each other, rather than creating SMS groupchats.
Ultimately, I am relieved in my decision to stop using the app. I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders, and I enjoy being in contact with my friends without the obligation to maintain a Snap streak with them. While I do believe that Snap has its purposes, I don’t enjoy being in the culture of a Snapchat user, and I feel much more comfortable using alternative methods, such as SMS messaging, phone calls, or FaceTimes to keep in touch with the people I care about. And at the end of the day, no, I don’t believe that sending pictures of your shoulders back and forth actually counts as staying in touch with people that you care about.