So Far, Teenagers Say They HATE The New Snapchat Update
Snapchat had its biggest update in months last Thursday, adding the ability to text and video chat with friends inside the app.
We already heard from one high school teacher: The update was the biggest classroom disruption she's experienced in her 16 years as an educator. She told us one of her students even crawled under her desk to avoid getting her phone taken away mid-download.
The students were going nuts over the update, but we didn't know why: Did they love it? Or did they hate it?
If there's a digital equivalent to sitting at the high school cafeteria table it's Twitter. You can search phrases and see what matches up - and you can see it all happen in real time. So I took to the social network to see what I could find, typing in "snapchat update."
I expected to see lots of different tweets.
Here's what I actually found.
First, a very strongly worded tweet from a teenager mad at her family and mad about the Snapchat update.
I chalked this up to angst. But then I kept scrolling.
Tweets were coming in pretty regularly; about 10-15 new ones would show up each time I would scroll down. Remember: the only words I searched for were "Snapchat" and "update."
Not only were teenagers saying they didn't like the update; they also didn't understand how it worked.
I wasn't seeing lots of varying opinions. I was seeing the same thing over and over again.
It was minutes of scrolling before I found this one lone tweet of approval:
The answer seems to be yes.
This seems to be an overwhelming opinion, but will Snapchat listen to its target audience?
Let's hope. Hell hath no fury like a teen scorned (and snapped.)
For what it's worth, it's not uncommon for people to react negatively to any update. So maybe opinions will change after they get used to it. We'll check back.