Snapchat is one of the most popular forms of social media that is used today. But what makes it so popular? Will it be popular forever?
Snapchat officially launched in September 2011. At this point in time, the app only allowed you to send pictures back and forth to your friends. The catch was that the picture could only be seen for a maximum of ten seconds. This is what made it so popular because this idea had never been done before. In fact it was so popular that it gained 10 million active users in exactly one year and one month. Exactly a year later Snapchat introduced the idea of “Stories”. A Snapchat story is a photo or video that someone posts to the story section of the app, which is visible to all your friends not just one person. This made Snapchat even more popular because no other app used this idea yet. In May 2015 Snapchat reached 100 million daily users. In fact 36% of Americans age 18-29 had a Snapchat account in the beginning of 2016. Snapchat also has features that include “Discover” and “Lenses.” “Discover” is Snapchat’s way of working with partners and “Lenses” are filters that you can put on your picture. As of right now there are 210 million Snapchat active Snapchat users.
Just like any social media platform, with all these users, there has to be some negatives. With the introduction of “Stories” there was an increased amount of FOMO (fear of missing out). Since users can view what others are doing in a matter of seconds, users could start to feel lonely, which can lead to anxiety and depression.
Eight years later, Snapchat is still one of the most popular forms of social media. Will it be popular forever? Probably not, but I do think it will be popular for a long time.
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