Snapchat is widely used within Owatonna High School by many of the students, and some staff members. Snapchat hit the market in November of 2012, after being created by Evan Spiegal, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. Snapchat has since become a very successful app all over the world. Search Engine Journal has 25 things that you might not know about Snapchat, “Originally Snapchat was called Picaboo, and it was first launched in July 2011 in Spiegel’s father’s living room on the Apple App Store.” There’s more to Snapchat then teens might know about, and here are some facts about Snapchat.

Igen teens are glued to their phones, and the way teens run their lives is around their phone because most of the things students do is online. According to Tech Target, “In common with Millennials, igen is comfortable with technologies that are fairly recent for older generations, and igen has grown up in the current environment of ubiquitous mobile communications.” igen likes snapchat because they can have face to face conversations with their friends. All you have to do is send a picture and you can type whatever you want.

The app is constantly changing to stay a favorite. Over the last four years, Snapchat has become one of the constant apps on the top of the most downloaded lists. Snapchat appeals to teenagers because they can send a picture to their friends for only a couple of seconds. Snapchat also features what are called ‘streaks’ these are awarded when you snap someone for so many days in a row, to the younger generations it also symbolizes a friendship. Junior Karissa Klecker said, “I like the streaks because I can see my friends everyday since I do not get to see them during school, but I hate it when people who send pictures of a black screen that says streaks because there is no point for that.” Klecker really likes streaks, but she gets irritated when people send just black screens, which is pointless.  Snapchat has also made it so that friends can be put into groups with each other on Snapchat so that they could talk to multiple friends at the same time within that group chat.

Snapchat’s latest update has brought new animated features creating a new way for its users to write messages. Snapchat has made it so that your bitmoji, an animation of the user, that can have a new outfit for every season. Senior Kevin Vasquez talks about a good, and a bad to the maps. Vasquez said, “The bad part about the map is that people can find you without you wanting them to. The good part about the map is that your friends can go to where you are without having to tell them directions the the location.” Vasquez likes the Snapchat maps to an extent because some people use it for good, and some people do it for other reasons that are not good.They also have added a map on snapchat so the user can see where their friends are. Some people do not like this addition to snapchat because any of your friends can see where you are at anytime. The map can also be beneficial because friends can find each other if they can not find the location that friend had told them to meet at. Snapchat has quickly fixed this feature by allowing the user to go on ‘ghost mode’ which allows them to remain off the maps. Although the idea is to connect people, some have been concerned about the safety of this map.

This is a main way that friends talk in this generation, and it’s the reason snapchat is the most used app for communicating between teens right now. No other app allows teens to really get this face to face communication which is the main reason why igen teens love Snapchat.