Controlling the Experience

Everyone loves a good SnapChat- whether its receiving one or creating one.  This small flash of a selfie, digital finger-painting, or event allows us to share with others in a way much different than most of social media today.

But why is SnapChat so popular?

Tara attributes its success to the fact that it is a forum without judgement. She says that "it doesn't matter what your friend thought of that last really ugly face you pulled- it's gone by now, and your friend has probably already forgotten about it, too."  Unlike platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat doesn't provide a set mechanism for supporting, disapproving, or disregarding something that a social media peer has shared.

While I do agree that it is easier to share on SnapChat, without the anxiety of not receiving an appropriate amount of "likes," I do not necessarily think that judgement within its network is completely inexistent.  For instance, others may give you direct feedback by responding to your snap or indirect feedback by snapshotting or simply opening it.

SnapChat isn't judgement-free, its just judgement in a more private setting- away from other onlookers and "friends." Only you can see the feedback from those who you choose to share something with.

But there has to be more than just the fear of being judged that keeps us snapping all day.

In addition to being able to hide feedback from others, I think that a major factor of SnapChat's popularity is the higher level of control that users have over their experience. Ultimately we get to control the content that we post on any social sharing tool, but SnapChat allows us to control exactly who gets to see this content and for how long they get to see it.

Although these are only two small differences to other social media networks, they create the illusion of an experience that is completely controlled by the sender.  The lack of public approval or disapproval on SnapChat, that I discussed earlier, lends a hand to this control.  We get to choose how we want to present ourselves, without letting social media and other peers on social media determine it for us.

It is also important to take into consideration the popularity of specifically viewing SnapChats.  I had to dig deeper than my own personal experiences to see what makes viewing SnapChats more enjoyable than just passively scrolling through my Instagram feed.

And once again, I believe that it circles back to control and choice.  When we receive a SnapChat, we have to actively choose to open it, in order to view it.  We get to choose if and when we do this.  And what Danah Boyd, of Microsoft Research, suggests is that "when people do choose to open a Snap, they actually stop what they're doing and look."

This claim is true, at least for my personal use.  Whenever I receive a SnapChat, I often wait until I am in the right place and time to open it. That way, I can focus on it and interact  accordingly.

SnapChat offers no option of passivity like the norms of most social media.  We must choose, and therefore, we tend to focus.  Boyd points to this attention and more-personal feel of SnapChat as setting the app apart from other social networks- "Snapchat asks you to stand still and pay attention to the gift that someone in your network just gave you."