Snapchat is a favorite app among students of all ages. This app allows people to share “in the moment” photos rather than posting it on a social media site and having it stay on the internet forever. Users can send their friends in the app pictures for up to 10 seconds and have it disappear, or post it to their story and have it be seen by everyone on their friends list for 24 hours.
Snapchat is a big hit with students but not so much with the parents. This fun photo and video sharing app is often misused with teens and young adults. The older generations are worried with how teens are using the app, and others like it, so it is important to inform this generation of young adults and younger generations how social media can play a negative role in their lives if not used it correctly.
With snapchat you can send a photo for 10 seconds or less, and in those 10 seconds many teenagers lives can be changed. With the creation of this app, ‘sexting’ has been at an increase for teenagers and an even bigger concern for parents. The worries parents have for their children will never go away, and since the outbreak of sexual harassment cases with snapchat, the concern is even worse.
All across the United States many sexual harassment and cyber bullying cases have been linked to snapchat. When teenagers send inappropriate pictures over the internet,snapchat in particular, they don’t understand the consequences. If someone sends compromising pictures, their life can be drastically changed because the person they send it to, who they think will be the only one who sees, could screen shot or save them the images and show them to many people. However, the person whose image is shared is not the only one that there is potential to hurt in this type of a situation. What the person who took the screenshot doesn’t understand is that if the sender of the photo brought it up to court and exposed that the recipient of the image took a screenshot and showed people, that individual could be charged with cyber bullying, sexual harassment, child pornography if the sender is under 18 and possibly get arrested.
A student at West Rowan High School in North Carolina was arrested and suspended from school for having an account where he would post fully nude photos of local teens in his area. The victim’s photo was sent to her boyfriend in confidence but was then leaked to this account. Sadly, this type of a situation is not confined to that school.When asked about their thoughts, some students at our school had a few words to say. An unnamed sophomore girl said “ Snapchat abuses the idea of secrecy. It allows you to screenshot and keep a private photo someone sent you when they held trust in you.”
A sophomore boy, Thomas Moore, said “I think people who abuse snapchat and go against the person they are talking to are bad people, and what they are doing is wrong.”
A sophomore girl, Kiri Wanless, said “I don’t think that snapchat or any other social media app had any intentions for abuse, or bullying, but it’s human nature to take advantage of and abuse things.” Prior to answering the question, all three students had to ponder the question. Talking about these kind of things are hard for everyone.
Whether something like this happens to you, someone you know or to someone across the other side of the country, it is still an important topic to talk about. Always be careful when posting or sending things on the internet. Whatever is sent on snapchat or any other social media is out there for good and can have a very large impact on your life. When applying for colleges or jobs in the future they are allowed to search about you and seeing something bad could easily damage what you want in the future. This modern age gives us many new advantages that former generations did not have access to, however, it is always good to err on the side of caution and use foresight when posting or sending images.
-Amanda Rinnert
The Claw 