Posts Tagged ‘research’

Answering My Main Inquiry Essay – Capstone #5

Hello everyone,

A little while ago my class was assigned to do an essay to answer our main inquiry questions for Capstone. First  I just wrote things down and kept revising and editing. My favorite part of this was writing my introduction and conclusion because you have a lot of freedom and get to get creative. I did’t really like editing and revising my essay because if I changed one thing it would most likely have to change another thing other wise it wouldn’t make sense. I am happy with my final product and proud of it so here it is!:

Snapchat. The app that has blown up. Snapchat has on average 187 million active users daily. When you first think about Snapchat, you probably think of the cool, cute filters you can take a picture with, but really there is a whole other side to Snapchat. What you don’t think of is how different communicating could be using Snapchat. So,I decided to explore the other side of Snapchat. This led to my research and soon turned into, “How has Snapchat changed the way we communicate?” The top three reasons to answer this question is because communicating through Snapchat is like having a face to face communication, people use Snapchat to talk through pictures, and it is a more personal way of communicating with closer friends.

My first reason is that when you Snapchat it feels like your having a face to face conversation. This is what Parker Collins a Digital Community Manager talked about with me. An example of this is that your message will disappear within 24 hours of sending it. This is exactly like face to face communication because no one is recording what you say to your friend or writing down what you say when you have a conversation with them and there is no record of what you say when your using Snapchat. Another example is when you take a picture or video and send it to someone, the person that you send it to can watch or look at it once and then replay it if they want to, but only once. You can also decide how long the person can see the picture or video. This shows that Snapchat is like face to face communication because when you talk to your friend in real life, you don’t normally repeat yourself more than once, because your both understand each other. This shows that Snapchat is like talking face to face.This keeps people interested because it’s a different way of communicating. Did you know the average time a Snapchatter spends on Snapchat is 30 minutes? This is because the app is so interesting. Also, people don’t feel like there is a lot of pressure when they talk through Snapchat.

Another reason that Snapchat has changed the way we communicate is that people talk through pictures. One Detail of this is that Evan Spiegel, the CEO and one of the founders of Snapchat has a quote that says, “ When you see your children taking a zillion photographs of things that you would never take a picture of, it’s because they’re using photographs to talk.” This shows that kids talk through pictures because kids are using photographs to talk. Another example of this is that there are filters, pen colors, and stickers that you can put on the picture that help you communicate through photographs. This shows that people can use these features to communicate. Both examples show how people communicate using pictures.

My last reason is that Snapchat is a more personal way of communicating with closer friends. One example of this is that I asked Parker Collins the Digital Community Manager what kind of app Snapchat is, and she described it as a social media app, but when you have it you don’t have a big public image, unlike Instagram or Facebook. This shows that Snapchat is a more personal way of communicating. Another example of this is that when you Snapchat your friends emojis come up next to their names. You get different emojis according to how much you Snapchat and how close you are over Snapchat. This shows that it is more of a private app because you won’t have a best friend emoji next to someone you barely know. Both examples show that Snapchat is more of a private social media app. Here is a picture of some of the symbols:

 

In conclusion, Snapchat has changed the way we communicate because it is like face to face communication, people talk through pictures, and it is a more personal way to talk with your closer friends. This to me means that Snapchat is a different way of communicating overall. Now, personally I don’t think that there is one answer to this question. The best way I could say it is that Snapchat communication is different way of communicating, but if I told you that was the answer to my main inquiry question I would be lying. So, what is the answer? Well, there are many different factors that answer my question, but the three that I listed above are the main ones to me. If there is one thing that I learned from trying to find the answer to my question is that Snapchat isn’t just an app. It helps people on a day to day bases and has changed the way we communicate as a whole and in many different ways. According to the average times an active Snapchatter will open the app is 25 times a day. This really shows that Snapchat is a part of people’s lives, not just another social media app. It really truly helps people communicate.