This is a blog post based off of an article written by
Avery Erwin called "How I Fell Out of Love with the Internet". 
For a class assignment, we had to mimic the writing style of the 
author and the topic. In this blog, I chose to write about Snapchat
because it is something that consumes all teenagers.

How I Fell Out of Love with Snapchat…

1. Fall in love with Snapchat.

2013. Open the app store. Download the new app everyone is raving about. Click create an account. Put in your name. Your birthday. See that the age requirement is 13. You are not 13. Lie about your birthday. Put in your email. Click create a username. You make it something funny. You regret that choice. You can’t change it. Ever.

The app loads. See yourself in the camera. Add your friends. Pose with a duck face. Do the fierce pose. Send a picture of your face to your friends with no words. Add more friends. Put your username in your Instagram bio. Get added by random people. Spend hours on your phone sending your face back and forth. But not really your face. Just your forehead. Or your hair. Or what you are looking at.

Send anything, the picture only lasts for a max of 10 seconds.

Your parents ask you what you are doing. You say snapchat. They assume the worst. You hang out with your friends. They ask you what you are doing. You say snapchat. They download it. They add you. They begin to snapchat you and everyone else. You are now best friends on Snapchat.

One problem: everyone can see your best friends list. You snapchat people you have never talked to before. Your friend gets mad because they are not on your list, but you are on theirs. They stop talking to you. You wonder what you did wrong. You lost a friend. 

Snapchat Updates. Visible best friend’s lists go away. You are all friends again. You forget what happens. You all continue to snap each other

2. Streaks.

Streaks. A counter of how long you have been snapchatting that person… in a row. 500 days. 1000 days. You need to be on your phone all the time so you do not lose a streak. Start streaks with people just to have the number, not because you actually like them.

Or, start a streak with a crush. Someone you like but never talk to. Get their snapchat, start a streak. It’s an excuse to talk to them every day because no one wants to lose it. Streaks create new friendships, make new friends, and make new streaks. Keep in contact with all your friends to keep the streak alive. Never go offline for a day because you are risk of losing your streak.

Go on vacation. But before you go, you post on your “Story” that you need someone to watch your streaks. You give them your password. They send streaks for you. They snapchat all the people you are. They steal your friends, your crush. They embarrass you. But there is no proof. Snapchats disappear after 10 seconds remember.

3. Get Chat.

You already text your friends all the time in massive group chats. Now, snapchat has messages. You go on snapchat to contact everyone you know. You trash talk all your other friends in the chat because it disappears after they view it. There is no history of the conversation ever happening.

Never use messaging again. You have to be snapchatting all the time. Spam your friend with how much you are other friend is annoying you. They will never know, the messages go away, don’t they? Send messages you would never send.

They save that message. Wait they can do that?

4. Snap Maps.

Snapchat updates. Cool, you can see where all your friends are on the maps. You can post your location. Let everyone know you are at a party. Upload to your story. Make everyone jealous with what you are doing. Keep your location on, see where all your friends are. They are all together. Your not with them. You weren’t invited.

Did you do something wrong? Did you make them upset. Its whatever, they forgot to invite you it’s no big deal. You post something on your story too to make them think that you are out doing something.

Guess what. All those people you added to have more friends, to snapchat more people, even though you don’t know them, can see where you are. It’s a tracker, anyone can find you now.

5. The more views you have on your story, the better you are. 

Post everything an your story. Add more people you don’t know just to get those views on your story. I had 200 views last week, this week i’m up to 500 views. I have 500 friends who all watch my story. how many of those people do you actually know? Do you actually care about?

Views on Snapchat stories or how many streaks you have has turned into likes. Who likes you, who do you like? It’s all about the numbers, not about the relationships.

There are only a few people you care about who you snapchat. You always open the snap and send one back. But wait, they don’t respond right away? What do you do?

6. Wait for someone to snap you back. They leave you on opened.

You check their snap map to see if the are on snapchat. You stalk their snap score to see if they are snapchatting other people and just ignoring you. Did you do something wrong? Are they mad at you? read too much into the situation.

You double snap them. Send another picture so they will respond to you. They leave you on opened again.

You check to see the last time they were on snapchat. Just Now. So they are responding to everyone but you. Seriously. You snap them again and again just waiting for them to respond.

You stare at your phone, waiting for them to respond, staring at the icon. The left on open icon. Left on read. You stalk their every move on social media. Waiting for them to respond. 1 hour goes by. No response. 2 hours. Nothing.

Send one more photo. Something that will MAKE them respond.

7. People screenshot your pictures.

You send that photo. Then, they screenshot it. You get the alert. That ten second photo that was sent to that person, is now in their camera roll. It’s not gone, it is saved. They have complete power over a photo you sent, they can put it everywhere.

You call out your friend, telling them it was an invasion of privacy. You forget about the photo.

It resurfaces in a month when it is your birthday. She posts it on Instagram, everyone can see it now. Everyone screen-shotted it. Everyone can see it. That photo is all over the internet, it will never go away.

But snapchat photos and chats are supposed to go away, right? 10 seconds is the maximum amount of time someone has to view that photo.. right? Be careful what you send, because you never know where that photo is actually going to.

8. What are they doing today… on Snapchat.

Post photos of yourself on vacation. Post photos of your dog. It is the digital world. Everyone is on Snapchat. Spend hours keeping up with people’s lives on Snapchat.

Who cares about hanging out or talking, you have snapchat for that. Everything you want to do in person, do it over Snapchat. Screen Time on Snapchat- 6 hours.

The real world, its gone. I guess that is fine. I mean who needs real relationships anyways.

9. Delete Snapchat.

You decide you need to delete snapchat because it has become your whole life. In the beginning your Snap score was 100,000… 1 month later… Snap score: 1,000,000. It’s unhealthy you delete it.

10. Download Snapchat. 

2 months later.

Your Friend: “Did you see what was on blah-blah-blah’s story”

You: “No, I didn’t. I deleted Snapchat”

Your Friend: “You need to see it. Like it is like so funny and like you need to see it”/

You re-download snapchat. You login. You check the story. You are about to delete it after seeing it. Your friend snapchats you. You open it, you snapchat them back. You start all your streaks again, posting on your story.

You are sucked back in. Can you help your self? It is your whole life.

No matter how hard you try, Snapchat is the addiction no teenager can shake. (me included). All it takes is one snap of a picture and everything changes. Its inescapable.

P.S.- add me on snap 😉

Picture Credits:

• https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/831867/Ministers-Police-Scotland-warn-kids-children-Snapchat-revealing-location-Snap-Map
• https://urbanmoms.ca/parenting/snapchats-new-snap-maps-feature-has-parents-concerned-for-their-kids-safety/
• https://www.businessinsider.com/teens-explain-snapchat-streaks-why-theyre-so-addictive-and-important-to-friendships-2017-4 
• https://www.iphonelife.com/content/how-to-use-snapchat-crash-course-filters-memories-snapcash-more
• https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/student-affairs-and-technology/would-you-delete-snapchat-because-politics