Snap your friends into a stream and many other snap tricks

Snapchat or Snap is one of the most popular social media among young people. What do 15 year olds do in Snap? Let´s find out, what our TET intern Milla tells us. 

What do you do on Snapchat? 

On Snapchat, young people send each other snaps, which are usually pictures or videos of themselves. Snaps sent to a friend usually include some text. 

Snap also has a “conversation section” where you can only write with private messages. Conversations are not recorded unless you “pole” them, i.e. save them. If you get a picture from a friend that you want in your gallery, you can take an “ss” or screenshot. 

You can draw on the pictures you take in different colors. You can also get the filter, time, temperature or speed you want at that moment. If you like a photo you’ve taken, you can post it in your own photo gallery. You can also enlarge, decrease, and move the text you type in the image. 

You can set the time for the image, how long it can be seen. The longest time is 10 seconds. If you take a video, its duration is also 10 seconds. 

Snap is for friends 

Snap doesn’t have followers, it’s usually used with friends. When you want to send messages to someone in Snap, you need to “sniff” them. Messages cannot be sent if the user is “private”. 

Snapped “celebrities” have usually set their status to public so that all their friends and fans can see their My Story. In My Story, anyone who has signed you up (if you’re public) can see what you’re uploading. Many vloggers upload videos of their day there and make My Day. Sometimes they do a Q&A where everyone can send them questions privately. The answers are available for everyone to see in My Story. 

All Snapchat users have a Score. Anyone who has missed you can see your Score. Score is based on the number of all snaps you’ve received or sent, or how many My Stories you’ve watched or downloaded. For young people who actively use Snap, the Score is usually closer to 5,000 or much above. 

Effects and emojis in active use 

This autumn, Snap introduced a new feature: when you aim the camera at your face and press long with your finger, you get some fun effect on your face photo. Young people take pictures of the effects on their faces and share them with their friends or in My Story. New effects come every day, and a few old ones leave. 

Emojis are used in Snap all the time. “Friend emojis” always mean a different thing. In the settings, you can see what the different emojis or emoticons mean. For example, if you have a red emoji heart after your friend’s name, it means you’ve been each other’s 1# best friends for two weeks. Your best friends are the ones you snap the most to. Their names are always followed by an emoji. 

Don’t cut off the stream! 

Snaps can have streams called “streak” with friends. For example, if you’ve been snapping back and forth with a friend for thirteen days in a row, their name will be followed by 13 and a fire emoji. 

Snapchat is growing more and more every day and new updates are being invented all the time. I believe Snapchat will one day become the most popular social media of all, if it isn’t already. 

Author:  

Lotta is a 13-year-old active social media user from Helsinki who was in Dagmar to familiarise herself with working life on TET Day. Lotta wrote about Snapchat, a service that is rapidly gaining popularity among young people, from a user’s perspective.