I'm about the same age as the poster and he's captured my age groups' experience of social media, including Snapchat, perfectly. Snapchat really is that big a deal.
Except these are all just anecdotes. I'm in the same age group and Snapchat use has definitely fallen off considerably on my college campus and some of my high school friends' campuses as well.
The only thing that would prove any of this is real data, which seems to be lacking in every claim....
Re: "These are all just anecdotes" - yes, he made it very clear in the beginning of his essay:
"This article will not use any studies, data, sources, etc. This is because you can easily get that from any other technology news website and analyze from there. I’m here to provide a different view based off of my life in this “highly coveted” age bracket. That being said, I'm not an expert at this by a long shot and I'm sure there will be data that disproves some of the points I make, but this is just what I've noticed."
Yeah, except that is basically saying his analysis is worthless, in my honest opinion. Combine this with the fact that he is clearly biased towards Snapchat (just look at his personal Twitter and blog), yet doesn't disclose that fact, and you get a bad article that is taken way more seriously than it should be.
Its similar to that fake radar app that claims it detects police radar from your smartphone then at the bottom of the description says "Does not work".
edit: (To explain, I don't think the author was malicious or really at fault. I think everyone trying to draw sweeping conclusions about our generation based on this article are ignoring the "Does Not Work" warning, when it comes to the fact that there is zero sources/data behind this....)
I only know a handful of people (myself included) that believe Snapchat does delete your photos. Everyone else I know believes that Snapchat has some secret database somewhere with all of your photos on it.
I don't think there is a lot of positive bias when he states that, "Everyone he knows believes that Snapchat has a secret database somewhere with all of your photos on it."
I'm not sure where your negative criticism is coming from. This is a single, very well written, anecdote. He EXPLICITLY states that there is almost certainly general data that will disprove everything he says. He makes it super, super clear that this is just a single individuals experience. If anything, he goes overboard in the opening paragraphs trying to disclaim everything he is about to write. Everyone else (including you) is free to write up their own stories, and from those many, many stories, we get a good picture of social media from the teenagers perspective. After all, the plural of anecdote is data.
The title clearly says "A Teenagers View on Media". It's not a little disclaimer at the bottom of the page that says "This is only my view". It's right in the title and opening paragraph.
Right, but I think it serves the same purpose. People willingly ignore it.
Either way, the original poster I responded to with the anecdote wasn't even the author of the article, but someone on here who provided another anecdote, but didn't give the same such warning or any indication that they knew what they were saying wasn't an actual relevant argument....
Well, I wouldn't say "worthless". If you're looking for a macro view of usage, sure, but again it's unfair to expect that from a piece that starts by flatly stating that's not what it provides.
What it does provide is a very clear sense as to how all of these different services end up playing very complimentary roles in an individual's life. Even if the particular services involved have a popularity that waxes or wanes, the broader picture formed by the complex decision making that resolves people's thoughts and feelings into one network or another remains fascinating. And that aspect of social media seems like it's here to stay.
So sure, this perspective may be worthless to you, but most smart people are sophisticated enough to realize that others have perspectives different from theirs. A person designing or developing social networks, for instance, would have to think about the stuff in this post very carefully if they had any hope of getting their own product into the mix. Yes, they would need the macro view too, but in the absence of the direct personal perspective (which is the perspective held by literally every single one of their prospective users), their efforts are guaranteed to fail.
Short version: if you're going to call something "worthless" be sure to include the essential qualifier "to me". Otherwise you just seem ridiculously self centered.
You've repeated this many times so it must really have struck a nerve with you but it's not like this is a recommendation for SnapChat. He thinks it's the most used and he states so, I really don't see a problem with that even if he is best friends with the CEO.
A few people in the comments are also saying they've seen a drop off in Snapchat usage at their schools, but that hasn't been reflected in the app's ranking in the app store. Snapchat has maintained a top 10 rank for the last year.
