SnapStats

By Julianna Mirabile

Social media plays a large role in a teenager’s everyday life. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat are the applications that are consuming hours of student’s everyday lives. Initially created in September 2011, Snapchat has grown and become one of the most popular platforms over recent years. It is an application that allows friends to send photos or videos to each other that only last for a specified number of seconds. Throughout the past couple of years, Snapchat added many features to make their app become more addicting and fun, including streaks, stories, and filters.

To see the involvement of Snapchat in Glenelg High School students’ lives, 100 students were surveyed on their Snapchat statistics, including their highest streak, the amount of streaks people have, the most used Snapchat filter, and the amount of time spent on Snapchat a day. 95% of surveyed students are active on Snapchat everyday.

    Snapchat filters, originally added to the application in 2015, have become trendy throughout the past couple of months. There is a variety of about ten filters that can be used daily, and while some of them have stayed the same, many of them change and correspond with the season. Popular filters used are the dog face, a butterfly crown, a flower crown, the face swap, and seasonal effects. Along with filters, there are three common ways that someone will snap; A full face selfie, a half face selfie, or a picture of the floor. From the data gathered, the average snap from a Glenelg student would be a half face selfie with a seasonal filter.

A Snapchat streak is the amount of days that the user and a fellow snapper have been snapping back and forth consecutively. Out of the students surveyed, the average streak amount was above 200 days. The highest streak in Glenelg is between Juniors, Jessica Foster and Giovanni Saglimbeni, at 585 days. When asked about how he keeps his streak alive, Saglimbeni said, “Last year I would reply in a second. This year, I’m trying to limit my time down on Snapchat, so it usually takes me a few hours to respond.” Though 585 days may seem like it is taking up all their time, it only takes one snap a day to keep the streak from dying.

    Though keeping streaks can seem like a complete waste of time, many users have multiple of ongoing streaks that broaden their social lives. Glenelg users have an average of 20-30 streaks, while the average time spent on Snapchat a day is one to three hours. This means that an average student at Glenelg snaps 20-30 people for 1-3 hours everyday.  Junior, Vincent Gurfolino, even said that he spends eight hours a day snapping. Sophomore, Wande Owens, has kept up with 37 streaks and spends most of his day snapping. When asked about why he feels the need to do this, he said, “It is so addicting, I know I should be studying.” The crazy amount of time spent on Snapchat consumes students’ lives and distracts them from their normal everyday activities. This universal application, though time consuming, fascinates students at Glenelg.