Forget Facebook and Twitter, today’s teenagers are turning to rival service Snapchat with 52 per cent of youngsters using the app to talk to their friends
The social network is gaining in popularity amongst older people, with more than 1.4billion users worldwide. However, teens are migrating onto other platforms where they are less likely to have their posts viewed by their parents. Many youngsters use Snapchat specifically because they believe it is more private. The social network allows users to send messages which are automatically deleted a few seconds after they are opened.
Fans of the app often feel safe using it to send explicit texts or compromising pictures for this reason. And it has surged in popularity in recent years, with its users now sending 400million so-called ‘snaps’ across the network every day.
However, users’ attempts to keep their messages private can backfire if the recipient takes a simple screen-grab – essentially photographing the image that momentarily appears on their screen.
Carolyn Bunting, general manager of online child safety body Internet Matters, said that many teenage users ‘may not realise… how this could backfire – with anyone being able to take a screen grab of the image and keep it forever’.
She added: ‘A great deal of parents think social media is about Twitter or Facebook and ignore the rest. But while Snapchat is the new thing, tomorrow it will be something else. That’s why it’s so important for parents to start conversations with their children and find out what they are doing.
‘They need to know what they are posting, who they are chatting to and explain to their kids about the consequences of what they’re posting. ‘We call it the ‘Billboard Test’ – if you wouldn’t want to see it plastered across a billboard, then don’t post it onto Snapchat.’
Snapchat was eclipsed in popularity by Instagram, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook, which is regularly used by 60 percent of secondary school children. Some 58 percent regularly use Apple’s iMessage instant messaging platform to communicate with their friends, both at home and at school.
By contrast, Twitter lagged far behind. Just one in three secondary school children regularly use the so-called micro-blogging service to talk to their peers. The results may be influenced in part by the age parameters of different social networks.
Theoretically, Snapchat and Facebook users have to be over 13 to use the platform. However, there are many younger children with accounts who have sneaked through by claiming they are older.
Internet Matters commissioned the survey from Techknowlege for Schools and the research agency Family Kids and Youth.
Category: News, Video News