The most accessible technological devices available to adolescents are smartphones and personal computers. The most common application used by these teens is Snapchat. It is a multimedia messaging app used globally. The product is used to send photos that disappear after being opened or after 24 hours on the user’s ‘story’.
The message presented through the advertising of this social media giant is their product. Screenshots used as advertising of the product have a wide range of vivid colors and positive images of users to entice potential users to download their product. The advertising is appealing to the user due to the complex colors, the expression of fun with friends, ‘live in the moment’, and seeing where your friends are on Snap Map. The advert’s page displays a star rating of 3.9 with potential users to glance through reviews made by current users, the age rating of 12+, but does specify certain mature content that may be seen, and the description does state the main features of the app include App, Chat, Discover, Snap Map and Memories. Snapchat stories (sometimes called ‘MyStories’) include a collection of pictures and videos that last 24 hours.
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The impact of the application on the user is both socially positive and socially negative. Snapchat's positive impact on the user's ability to connect with the outside world and make new friends and family.
The negatives that can affect the user are depression and FOMO (fear of missing out), according to Dr. Amy Summerville, a professor of psychology at Miami University in Ohio. Dr. Amy Summerville is an expert on issues of regret and the psychology of ‘what might have been’. She later explains: “FOMO is an extension of larger issues of inclusion and social standing. Once our basic needs are met like food, shelter, and water, the need for inclusion and social interaction ranks right up there”. FOMO is caused when a user uses their Snapchat stories, which include a collection of pictures and videos that last 24 hours. So you get to see all the fun things your friends do and have done in the past day. FOMO here is way worse than individual snaps, especially if a group of your friends is altogether. You get to see what you’re missing out on from several different views and FOMO grows with each new story view. Since this story is up for 24 hours, you can live your FOMO out for a whole day if you so choose. FOMO can lead to depression because Snapchat is all about sharing your best, showing off, seeing who's better, and living the ‘perfect’ life. Counting likes or views for Snapchat is a huge player to see who is living the perfect life and to see who the popular users are. The more views, the more fame. Lack of attention can cause stress or even depression, and together with social comparison, all of these factors could theoretically cause depressed behavior in today's teenagers.
Snapchat is a way of interconnecting over a smartphone to send your friends and family a ‘snap’, but only permits you to see it for one to 10 seconds, depending on what the user sets the timer to. Once your time is up, the app ‘permanently deletes’ the snap forever. Studies have shown that Snapchat keeps your pictures for up to 30 days after being sent, and possibly longer if they want to. The so-called 10 seconds and it’s gone is not the case at all. The social media giant owns all the photos you send and post to your ‘story’, which is stated in the terms and conditions. The stigma around Snapchat is that it’s a ‘safe place’ to share photos of anything and not see them again because you believe they disappear after those simple 10 seconds, but they don’t. These photos can haunt you for the rest of your life with NSFW photos being shared with your boss at work and your family. The user chooses to use Snapchat for all the wrong reasons, but they still choose to use it, even though it poses a massive risk.
The identity you create in these virtual worlds can be the person you want to be or something you could never achieve. This new you are so coded in your phone and it only exists in the eyes of your users and the apps, you use to fake yourself. Your new personality is just a bunch of filters and free give away you use to include more people in your fake life. The danger of this virtual construct is that you lose yourself in the void.
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