Snapchat was a one of a kind app which was created to be nothing like Facebook. People complain that the two apps are nothing alike and yet that was the point, and I will show you how the two differ. I use both apps and personally like that they are completely different.
Facebook was created to connect people. It connects you with your best friend from eighth grade who you haven’t talked to in years, your travelling aunt who is currently in Rome and your best friend you see every weekend. Facebook was created so that you and your friends could still be informed and active in each others lives without actually needing to have a personal conversation with them.
Facebook is a place to document the best moments in life, and a place to find support in the worst. Facebook has morphed into a place to play online games with your friends, a place to keep up with your favourite brands, celebrities, news sources and entertaining videos. Facebook is full of advertisements but it is “free and always will be!”
Snapchat is created for intimacy. Snapchat does not make it easy to find people and it does not make it easy for other people to find you. The posts you make on Snapchat are temporary, meaning people feel free to be their imperfect selves instead of painting a picture of what they want people to see. These factors make most users choose their friends carefully depending on their comfort level.
Snapchat was created around smartphones and their cameras, for documenting the events you experience in the moment. These moments can be shared to make others laugh, to show off you and your friends enjoying a night out, to share a selfie featuring a filter that can expresses your emotion, to add to a public story and be apart of the bigger picture. The uses for Snapchat stories are endless.
People love them because the people who can view your carefully constructed stories are specially chosen by you! Even though you love Grandma, she won’t be able to comment on your story and explain her concern over you being out so late in the middle of the work week for all of your friends to see.
Another ability of the latest updates on snapchat are that you can share your location or view the locations of your friends. This is if you have allowed the feature on your phone, re-establishing that snapchat lets you call the shots.
This is quite different from Facebook, where you were forced to download Facebook Messenger and are constantly notified to update information on yourself for your profile until they know everything about you.
What’s with the pushy attitude Facebook? Of course, to this question they would answer by explaining that in order to market best to you as an individual and to make sure that you are as connected as possible, they need to have all the information about you that you are willing to give.
But no one ever said they wanted to scroll through advertisements before getting to look at their new baby cousin’s photos. On Snapchat, I am advertised to when looking at the channels or between the stories of my friends. These ads I can choose to watch or tap to skip. Meaning I chose when I look at content other than stories.
Another perk to Snapchat, is that the app is trendy. Snapchat is always updating, adding new filters and features and has a direct connection to the most popular magazines. This is not a quality of Facebook. Facebook is known for its use and influence of the older generations. Thus steering young people away from the social media platform.
Some people I know, myself included, don’t bother posting much of anything on Facebook because with too many Facebook friends, we don’t feel like we can post anything real about ourselves. Everything that is on Facebook is simply the image we want people to see of ourselves.
Obviously this article has expressed my favour for Snapchat. But I do still appreciate Facebook. I like that I can reach many people at once with a post. I love the usefulness of buy and sell pages, and my friends group chats. I don’t even mind some of the advertisements as they have been selected for me based on my likes, shares and other information they pick up.
I believe that Snapchat and Facebook have two very different uses and that if one app works for you while the other doesn’t, use the one. Use both of them like I do if you enjoy having two different audiences for your posts. And to my friends who disregard social media completely, enjoy your peace and quiet for me. 🙂
Tess Houcher
Interesting side note:
Before I had finished my article I went onto my snapchat to look at the BuzzFeed channel and all of its stories for the day and I was very intrigued by the voting poll of the day. For those of you who don’t know, Snapchat’s channels will often have quick polls. They usually ask questions that would help them figure out how to entertain their viewers better. For example: Which dessert is the most satisfying to watch being made? Then we are given a few choices and can click on one. I usually vote for these polls for two reasons. One, because I like to let the channels know what I am interested in so they can entertain me better. And two, they show you the current results of the poll after you vote and I find it very interesting to see what the rest of the world thinks. Anyways, the other day Snapchat had a poll asking if you use Snapchat or Instagram filters. I found the results quite interesting…
But is it real…?
Let me know your thoughts on Snapchat, Facebook and this poll in the comments!
