With the vast number of social networks and messaging services available today, it’s very easy to get lost amongst the crowd, losing important perspective in the process.
A new editorial by University of Texas at Austin undergraduate Andrew Watts breaks down a number of such services, all while including his thoughts and opinions on each as a Net-savvy teenager.
On Facebook
- Facebook is seen as “dead” to Watts and his peers, like “something we all got in middle school because it was cool but now is seen as an awkward family dinner party we can’t really leave.”
- Watts is careful to point out, however, that Facebook’s ubiquity (if you don’t have Facebook, that’s even more weird and annoying”) and extremely popular Messenger app keep it in his demographic’s relatively good graces.
On Instagram
- Watts names Instagram as the most important social network for his age group, calling it the “most used” network as time is spent on Facebook, but the lion’s share of content is actually posted to Instagram.
- Watts portrays Instagram as less annoying than Facebook, in part because his friends do not post “10000 times a day”; perhaps most importantly, he notes there are no links on Instagram, meaning he is not “being constantly spammed by the same advertisement, horrible gossip news article, or Buzzfeed listicle”.
On Twitter
- Most teenagers, Watts explains, “do not understand the point” of Twitter.
- Aside from a few groups of people using it to complain about school, Watts says, there are not many reasons to use it.
- Yik Yak, on the other hand, is mentioned as an extremely popular short update-sharing service, likely on account of its anonymity.
On Snapchat and Tumblr
- Snapchat and Tumblr are given special mention by Watts as sorts of judgement-free zones lending themselves to less stress than Facebook or Twitter thanks to a lack of follower counts in Snapchat’s case and anonymity on Tumblr.
- Watts sees both as being particularly “alluring” on the strength of these factors and their ease of use.
