This Is How a Teenager Uses Snapchat

Ben Rosen:

I’m 29 years old, and I’ve been on Snapchat for about a year now. I post fairly often (usually on my Story), and I get a decent amount of engagement from my friends. Quite honestly, up until Thanksgiving, I thought I was pretty good at Snapchat.

Then I watched my little sister on Snapchat.

I’m 37 and I only find one good use for Snapchat — when travelling you get to bring your followers along for the ride.

ME: Tell me what your day is like on Snapchat.
BROOKE: When I wake up, I have about 40 snaps from friends. I just roll through and respond to them.
ME: How do you respond? Like, “haha good one, Elsbitch”?
BROOKE: No conversations…it’s mostly selfies. Depending on the person, the selfie changes. Like, if it’s your best friend, you make a gross face, but if it’s someone you like or don’t know very well, it’s more regular.
ME: I’ve seen how fast you do these responses… How are you able to take in all that information so quickly?
BROOKE: I don’t really see what they send. I tap through so fast. It’s rapid fire.

I’m mesmerized. What’s even the point of sending snaps to each other if you don’t look at them? Am I crazy? That seems so unnecessary. Still, this is adult-brain talking. If I wanted to be one of the teens, I needed to just accept it and press on.

This seems completely pointless and a complete waste of time. While this sort of behaviour seems to increase one’s popularity, I cannot see what the benefits of it are. The downsides seem huge though — an inability to focus, lack of personal interests in many more important (and fun!) activities, etc. I recall I used to spend all my free time reading books instead of staring into smartphone screens — probably because these weren’t invented yet — on public transport, during family dinners, and wherever else that I could.

Like I said — I’m 37 — but in case you do want to follow me for some obscure reason that I fail to understand, my avatar-scan-to-follow-thingy is posted below.