Everyone and their mother have been talking about the latest Snapchat update since it was released in the first couple weeks of February. I was one of the later recipients of the update as my friends droned on about its unexpected arrival. While there are many opinions on the new design — most of which are negative — people seem overwhelmingly confused more than anything.
With this new design, Snapchat has taken the “Stories” page and “Snaps” page and combined them in one. Now when you swipe to the left from the camera, it brings you to the “Friends” screen. This is a combination of all your Snapchats and friends’ stories. In the picture below, a user with the blue circle means that there is a story to watch. If you swipe to the left, you’ll get news on celebrities and get to watch celebrity stories.
If you’ve already seen a friend’s story and want to watch it again, you have to tap on the person’s Bitmoji on the friend screen, click their story and then click their profile. After watching one person’s story, Snapchat sets you up to watch the next one. You can either click to watch it, swipe to skip it or tap down to exit. Another feature is that group Snapchats now have their own group story. The friend list format is also different, as the people that you keep in contact with most are the ones who show up at the top. Sound confusing? I agree.
The “Send To” screen is different as well, as Snapchat claims they “make it easier to send snaps to your best friend, groups of friends and new friends.” When you go to the screen now, the people at the top in their own separate boxes are the ones you chat with the most. It’s now possible to have eight best friends. You can also add stories to your general story, as well as group stories at top of the screen.
If you swipe to the left, it will take you to the “Discover” page. This page is focused on entertainment, and includes shows, content from publishers and stories from celebrities and creators you follow. The page is somewhat personalized for you based on who you followed before and who Snapchat thinks you would also like. You can also report content you don’t like by clicking the black flag emoji. You can subscribe by holding the story until a “Subscribe” button pops up. This will allow you to see similar stories. If you don’t like something, you can hold it and click “See less like this.”
With all these new features, it certainly was overwhelming to me and others. Many people took to social media sites to express criticism about the new look. For example, on Twitter many people have been retweeting a tweet expressing that they want the old Snapchat back. A Twitter user took to the platform to explain that if the picture he had including a screenshot from his conversation with someone from Snapchat got retweeted a certain amount, they would change their format back. While it hasn’t been changed yet, the retweet count surpassed 1 million.
Other people have expressed their dislike of the new update.
While it seems that some people like it and are getting used to the new format, it’s overwhelmingly a strong negative response. Personally, now that I’m getting used to the new look I don’t mind it as much. However, I do understand the confusion since the layout is so much different than it was before.
One of the downfalls is that people dislike the fact that it’s easier to lose streaks. Now that the stories and individual chats are on the same page, it’s possible that when someone you don’t usually chat with puts a story up it can appear at the top of your list. While on the send page under “Best Friends” it’s easier to find your snap streaks, on the main page it’s easier for them to get lost in the mix of stories. For the people who like celebrities and entertainment to be separate from their personal snaps, this update will likely be one that grows on them.
Overall, it seems that while the Snapchat update is not being talked about as it was in the first few weeks it was released, it’s still a feature that people are getting used to. It might be a good idea to simply adjust, because it doesn’t seem like it’s changing back anytime soon.