After Father Tied Baby in Laundry Bag, Mother Posted â€ëœfunny' Picture on Snapchat, Cops Say

Verywell / Brianna Gilmartin

Snapchat is an application for mobile devices that allows users to transport photos and videos (called snaps) to other users. Yet, unlike with photos or videos sent via text or email, those sent on Snapchat disappear seconds after they're viewed—the sender gets to decide how long a photo will "live," from one to 10 seconds, after it's viewed.

Overview

The idea of Snapchat is that users can send time-limited photos that might exist embarrassing or just silly without a pregnant fear that it volition find its way to other social media sites where information technology might live forever.

Sounds good, in theory, but the trouble is that at that place actually are ways to capture and recover images, which is why no i should develop a faux sense of security about sending them.

The Origins

Snapchat was adult by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Tater, two Stanford University students who felt emoticons weren't sufficient to transmit the emotion someone might wish could be sent with a text message.

But they were also nervous that a quick snap of a cellphone camera showing a particular emotion might end up being inappropriate for a social media site where the film could be posted for all the earth to encounter. Thus, the concept of a time-express photo-sharing application was born.

How SnapChat Works

Once the Snapchat application is downloaded from the App Store or from Google Play, the user registers and sets a countersign. It then accesses your contacts on your cellphone to load friends to the application, or you can add other friends across your contact listing.

Once you load the app and log in, you can take a photo, edit it, add a caption, or other "doodles." Then you select the friends to ship the photo to and prepare a timer from 1 to 10 seconds. Afterward the photo is sent, the receiver has the fourth dimension set past the timer subsequently they access the app to await at the photo before the message "self-destructs."

Friends can and then take their ain photos to reply or simply send a bulletin back.

Popularity

Snapchat is wildly pop, with 41% of teens ages 13 to 17 using the app, according to 2015 research by the Pew Research Group. Consider these stats, compiled past Omnicore:

• In 2020, Snapchat had an average of 218 million daily agile users that generated over 3 billion snaps a day.
• Active Snapchatters open the app 30 times a day.
• More than than threescore% of active Snapchatters create new content on a daily basis.
• On average, users spend 49.5 minutes a day on Snapchat and send 34.i messages a day.

Parental Concerns

Despite its popularity, parents are correct to be concerned about Snapchat—there are a host of issues that can compromise kids' prophylactic.

First of all, for parents who monitor their children's smartphone use, Snapchat doesn't save pictures and messages sent so you can run across them later. If you have a software package that allows yous to see the content of your child's phone remotely online, you won't be able to see what was sent and so automatically deleted. That may raise some concerns.

Secondly, while the photo message disappears from the telephone subsequently a few seconds, it doesn't forestall the receiver from snapping a screenshot of the photograph while information technology's live.

To Snapchat's credit, if a receiver takes a screenshot of the photo, the sender is notified, merely that may not be enough to prevent the photograph from being shared later on with others.

In add-on, if a receiver knows that a message is coming, they could take a photo of the screen with another telephone or digital photographic camera and the sender would never know that their supposedly evaporating photo would be alive and well on someone else'southward device.

Finally, considering of the lower risks of having a photo eventually making the rounds of the Internet, it'due south besides tempting for teens to use Snapchat for "sexting." Snapchat itself admits that up to 25% of users may ship sensitive content on a regular basis "experimentally."

I father, whose girl was being bullied via Snapchat—a reportedly all-also-common occurrence—was able to apply this workaround for good when he recorded ane of the bullying snaps by taking a video of information technology on his ain phone.

Parents who allow their children to have Snapchat need to have a serious word with their kids to discuss the risks associated with the false sense of security that Snapchat may provide.

Other Snapchat Features

Since its creation in 2011, Snapchat has added other features that parents should be aware of.

Snap Map

Introduced in 2017, Snap Map allows users to share their location in real-time with anyone on their Snapchat friend list and run across the locations of their friends who do the same. The feature is a way to utilize the location services already available in many other smartphone apps. Since some of their Snapchat contacts may not be real friends, this is a big risk.

Unless there's a specific result and it makes it easier for friends to know each other's location, experts advise leaving Snap Map off or using it in "ghost mode," which allows yous to see the location of friends who oasis't subconscious their locations.

Discover

Launched in 2015, the Discover characteristic allows you lot to see content from pop media channels—many of which offer sexually oriented content. Although Snapchat'due south terms of service discourage explicit content, these channels include images posted from magazines, television stations, and other content providers that tin be inappropriate for children.

For instance, some of the pop channels featured on Discover include MTV, Cosmopolitan, Vice, and BuzzFeed.

A lawsuit filed in California in 2016 cited some of the offensive Snapchat Notice content including "people share their secret rules for sex" and "10 things he thinks when he can't make you orgasm." Not many parents would be comfortable with their tweens and teens having immediate admission to manufactures similar these.

Snapstreaks

A Snapstreak occurs when two users have snapped dorsum and along within a 24-60 minutes period for 3 days in a row. Once this occurs, a flame emoji and a number will appear next to the streakers' names to show how long the streak has been maintained. Maintaining streaks is very of import to teens because streaks allow kids to interact socially and feel part of something many of their peers are doing.

For many kids, they're a measure of their friendships. Experts worry, though, that the pressure of keeping a streak going—teens are oft maintaining many streaks at the same time—may take a toll on kids.

Safeguards

It'south of import to note that Snapchat does have a minimum historic period of xiii, which is in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. When it'due south downloaded, Snapchat asks for your engagement of nativity, and—if you're nether xiii—y'all're redirected to the kid version, called "SnapKidz," which is more restrictive than Snapchat (for case, you lot can't add friends or share anything).

Information technology's not uncommon for underage kids to detect a workaround (that is, using a imitation birthdate) so they tin can open an account.

A Give-and-take From Verywell

Snapchat can be a fun and engaging app when used appropriately, carefully, and with very specific ground rules—or not used at all. Apps like Snapchat remind parents that they need to exist vigilant about their children's smartphone utilize and to monitor their activity to foreclose issues similar sexting, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, or other elements of the dark side of smartphone utilise past children.

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Source: https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-snapchat-and-its-use-1270338

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