Snapchat Trends: Snap Map

/in /by

Note: This is the second of three articles on Snapchat. If you missed the first article, take a look: Snapchat Trends: Streaks and Scores.

I asked my 16 year old son’s friend, Nick, what he thought about Snapchat’s newest feature, Snap Map. His response was immediate and strong: “It’s creepy!”

At the end of June, Snapchat released an update to the app which includes Snap Map. This new feature allows a user to share location with all Snapchat friends, a few friends that are selected, or disappear from the map at anytime, referred to as “Ghost Mode”. When enabled, a friend can activate Snap Map and an icon representing the user will appear on the map in the user’s exact current location.

Concerns

So what should parents know about this? The first thing to consider is the critical issue of privacy and how much information our kids are sharing on social media. Privacy is one of the most difficult messages to get kids to understand and the perception that things disappear from Snapchat only clouds this message. Once something goes online, including Snapchat, privacy has been forfeited forever. I also talk to kids about the risks of “checking in” with a current location. Letting the world know an exact location at any given time is opening a huge window into your child’s private world, including home address, friends’ home addresses, school, and favorite hang out spots. Believe it or not, kids struggle to realize that they are communicating all that information.

So now enters the functionality of Snap Map, which can potentially allow any person who is a Snapchat “friend” to track your child’s every movement.  Let’s think about this… according to Statista, 79% of responding Internet users, aged 13 to 24, use Snapchat.

Snapchat is reported to have 100 million daily active users. I don’t have to do the math to know that if a large number of that 100 million are our children who have Snap Map enabled, there are a lot of locations being shared online!

Another issue to consider relates to exclusion and friendships. Snapchat describes Snap Map “as a way to meet up with friends in real life rather than just watching each other’s lives on your phone.” A noble idea, to say the least. So I asked a 16 year old girl what she thought of this idea. She talked about this being another way that social media can hurt people’s feelings. She said that because she could see Snap Map with all of her friends together, she will know when her friends were getting together WITHOUT her. She added “I would just rather not know if I’m not invited. Sometimes I’m not included and that’s ok. I get it. But I don’t need to see it.” The insights that teens provide can be sobering and eye opening. She was right. We don’t need to always know what our friends are doing and sometimes we are not included.

If you are like me, the first thing I wondered was if my own children have Snap Map enabled. Obviously I could simply ask them, but that is not always the best first approach as it can lead to some defensiveness, a sure conversation blocker. One suggestion would be to simply ask them if they have heard about it. In my house, that question usually initiates a quick eye roll (which I ignore) and then some explanation of what it is. If you can provide a place for your kids to talk about it openly, you might get a feel for where you need to go with the conversation. When given the proper platform, teens can do a good job of communicating their opinions on these issues. For younger tweens and teens, this is a great opportunity to talk about privacy and sharing of sensitive information.

Helpful Hints

  • Location sharing is off by default, in Ghost Mode.
  • It is not possible to share locations unless you are friends on Snapchat.
  • Snap Map is accessed by going to the camera screen and pinching your fingers together as if you are zooming out of a picture.
  • The location is updated on the Snap Map ONLY when Snapchat is open. The location is not updated in the background of the app.
  • Snaps that are submitted to Our Story can still show up on the map even in Ghost Mode.

Snapchat Trends: Streaks and Scores

/in /by

Note: This is the first of a 3 part blog series on Snapchat. Next up is a look at the latest feature from Snapchat, Snapmap.

In October 2014, I published Snapchat: Do those pictures really disappear forever? The objective was to provide an introduction to this relatively new app that was gaining popularity at an alarming speed. As I read over this blog today, I realize some of the basic information still holds true. However, 2.5 years later, Snapchat has become the clubhouse leader as the preferred app among teens. For many, this app has become more than simply a fun way to share pictures, but also a primary mode of communication. Most teens prefer to ‘snap’ someone rather than sending a traditional text (did I just refer to text as ‘traditional’?).

Just how popular is Snapchat? Here are some interesting stats and fun facts (as published by Omnicore, January, 2017) :

71% of Snapchat users are under 34 years old, 45% are between 18-24, & 23% are between 13-17

Total number of monthly active users = 300 million

Total number of daily active users = 100 million

Average time spent in the app per user on a daily basis = 25-30 minutes

According to a report by Statista (spring of 2017), Snapchat ranks as the ‘most important social media network of teens in the United States’. In my own home, it has proven to be an excellent way to stay connected on a daily basis with my son who is away at college. He is not a person who enjoys phone conversation, but I can send him a quick snap of the dog or a fun selfie with a caption ‘thinking of you’ or ‘miss you’. He will always return the snap with one of his own giving me some visibility into what’s going on in his life.

As the app has gained immense popularity, Snapchat has continued to add to its features and functions in an effort to make it an exciting place to be in the online world. These new features have increased its appeal to social media audiences, of which teens make up a high percentage.

Streaks

One way Snapchat keeps it users engaged on a daily basis is through Snapstreaks. A Snapstreak is a number which indicates how many days in a row two people have snapped each other. The number appears to the right of a friend’s name. There are emoji’s that go along with that number that indicate whether there is a streak going or if the streak is about to expire.

The question on my mind is this: Does a streak put a measurable number on a friendship for Snapchat users? Personally, I worry about the tendency of teens to measure their perceived importance or popularity among their peers by an arbitrary social media number. Are streaks becoming just another social media ploy that increases the social pressure our children feel in an effort to promote the use of the app which ultimately leads to more revenue for Snapchat? What is the cost (pun intended) to our children’s relationships, self esteem, and confidence? When I am in schools, I often hear kids tell me how many streaks they have going and how many days they have with the streak.

I have heard both sides of the argument from teens themselves. Recently, at a school in New York, one middle school boy told me that ‘streaks are stupid and cause people to send meaningless snaps’. He went on to tell me that he has received snaps of complete darkness with the message ‘#streak’ included. He described feeling that the person cared more about a streak than truly connecting and communicating with him.

On the flip side of this discussion, I asked a college student what he thought of Snapstreaks. He said this:

I feel like it can help people who are bad at keeping friendships going a little more accountable in the relationship. However, I don’t like when the snap is sent ONLY to keep the streak alive.

Scores

While Snapstreaks generate a number that can be viewed as a measures of the value of a friendship, a Snapchat score provides a  different analytic. A score is basically a number that measures the number of snaps a user has sent and received, stories that have been posted, and some other factors.

While a Snapchat score does not seem to carry the same importance and implied meanings of a Snapstreak, it still gives a number that can be perceived by teens as a measure of popularity and self importance. For example, my Snapchat score is about 1,500, but my son has a score of 161,000. Personally, I could care less about this.  However, I worry that a teen might draw some fairly inaccurate conclusions from a number that was devised to increase traffic on the app and generate more advertising revenue. Think of all the numbers that are generated for our children as a result of social media activity…followers, likes, Snapstreaks, Snapscore, friends.  It is a lot to manage and navigate for anyone much less our children.