And why I’m still going to use it
There is no doubt that Gen Z rules Snapchat. In a 2021 survey by Forrester, (Weekly Usage Of TikTok Surpasses Instagram Among US Gen Z Youth (forrester.com), 64% of Gen Z Americans use Snapchat daily. I started using Snapchat in middle school, and have a newfound appreciation as a college freshman for how easy I can connect with both old high school friends and new classmates through the app.
Yet, if I had to name an app on my phone I despise the most, it would be Snapchat every time.
1. The filters
Yes, I find Snapchat filters fun. I frequently send absurd filters back and forth with my friends. I don’t hate the idea of the filters, but I hate the execution. Most of the cutesy filters on Snapchat edit the user’s face to make them more fitted to Western beauty standards. This includes blurring the skin, lightening the eye and skin color, enlarging the eyes and shrinking the nose and jaw. There’s nothing as humbling as taking a cute selfie with a Snapchat filter, only to see what my face really looks like after I take it off. While this may seem like a superficial reason to hate Snapchat, there are people who are actually seeking cosmetic surgery to look more like Snapchat filters. Plastic surgeons are calling it “Snapchat dysmorphia” (source: Selfies—Living in the Era of Filtered Photographs | JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery (liebertpub.com)). I hope that someday, Snapchat can find a way to offer fun filters without also perpetuating unrealistic and harmful beauty standards.
2. THE SNAPMAP
Snapmap honestly makes no sense to me. Why would I want the random people I have friended on Snapchat to know my location? Especially after starting college and meeting a ton of people all at once, I have several “friends” on Snapchat who I haven’t seen or talked to since adding them. My recommendation is to switch the settings to only allow certain people to see your location, or just turn the location off all together. Although, I doubt the 13-year-olds who use Snapchat are really thinking that critically about their safety.
3. risky behaviors
This brings me to my next point. A lot of the younger people who use Snapchat don’t realize that everything on the Internet is forever and digital footprints are real. Because everything on Snapchat is “temporary,” people feel more empowered to engage in inappropriate and risky behavior through the app. This has made Snapchat a really unsafe space for a lot of vulnerable people, and I struggle to support the platform because of this.
4. the way everything deletes
Sometimes my friends or family send me pictures I want to keep, yet if I don’t go through the steps of saving the photo quick enough, it will erase forever. The same thing applies to the chats. I’m a girl who likes to reread text messages. Sometimes it’s for laughs or to relive sentimental conversations, or sometimes it’s even to remember details about plans made with friends. Yes, Snapchat has a feature to save chats. However, it seems like most Snapchat users don’t like having their chats saved. One of the app’s main appeals is that what you send isn’t supposed to last forever.
5. The Snapscore Feature
This one just feels personal. I don’t need people seeing my low Snapscore and realizing how few friends I have. Why would anyone even care to see how many Snaps a person has sent anyway? This feature truly baffles me.
While I am a Snapchat hater at heart, I’m also a huge hypocrite. I use Snapchat almost every day. To me, it feels like there isn’t a choice. Many of my close friends use Snapchat as their primary form of communication. When meeting new people, the question isn’t, “do you have Snapchat?” It’s “what’s your Snapchat?” Also, I have FOMO. So until Gen Z moves on to the next big thing, I will remain a very reluctant and ashamed Snapchat user.