Woah, did I really just say that?
Yes, I did. As a person that really likes technology and loves staying on top of social trends, I must say, Snapchat has some shady qualities that truly make it more trouble than it's worth.
On the plus side, Snapchat is a fun app with which to take silly pictures of yourself and put them online for the world (well, your friends) to see. It's got a great collection of very unique and funny filters that make for some good laughs; they're reminiscent of the Photo Booth fascination of years past. I like the one that makes your face fat the most.
But the pluses end there.
For starters, the fact that you can send Snapchats to multiple individuals at the same time without them knowing that it's addressed to someone else besides him or her is shade central. You get a cute picture from your crush or a sweet Snap from your best friend and feel warm inside as a result, knowing you truly mean whatever they said about you to them. But then the realization that the same Snap could have been sent to others at the same time sets in and you feel doubtful, concerned and potentially cheated.
This attribute of the platform is exacerbated by the fact that Snapchat Stories are a thing. A user on Snapchat has the choice of whether to broadcast his or her message to his or her followers or carefully manicure the audience to which he or she sends their message. I've been in situations where I got one part of a story through an individual Snap, and then came upon the rest of the tale on a Story! That's shady, man! Doesn't that mean one part of the story was for me and the rest was for public consumption?
Another thing has to do with the user's preference to undershare or overshare. While I try to stay away from this as much as possible, I have been told of situations where people felt offended, ignored or belittled by content they saw on Snapchat that didn't line up with real life conversations. A friend tells you they're too busy to hangout with you one day, only to later upload Snaps of them having the time of their life somewhere and suddenly you feel betrayed. It tugs at heartstrings connected to feelings of jealousy, belittlement, anger and sadness and it all begins because someone wasn't being honest. That really sucks, man, and if Snapchat didn't exist, at least privacy would reign supreme over making someone feel bad.
Am I the only one that thinks this way about Snapchat, an otherwise fun little social media platform that essentially brings Photo Booth into the social media sphere? Let me know.
