27/12/16 - Do I need to get Snapchat? And would you please explain it to me? (31)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/26/do-i-need-to-get-snapchat-and-would-you-please-explain-it-to-me

This article is about the social media site, Snapchat. At some points, the writer of this article is making negative comments about it as he believes that the majority of the young users use snapchat too frequently to make daily updates on what is going on in their lives. He also states how it takes up too much memory and how everyone should just stick to Facebook as it is more of a simple social media site to use. A lot of people would not know this, but snapchat was originally made for the 30+ age group but turned out that more of the teenagers would use it. This is because of the fact that, younger audiences will frequently be accessing their smartphones as they only have school 6 hours a day and the fact their parents would be too busy cleaning, cooking and working. In addition, the writer also talks about the main things which Snapchat lets the audience to do: Snapchat’s point of difference is that its pictures and videos are visible for a maximum of 10 seconds, then disappear. Over the past 18 months, new features have been added, such as stickers and animated lenses to jazz up your selfies that doubtless brought enormous cheer to those around you this Christmas.

• According to the company’s own figures, more than 150 million people use the app every day, including 41% of 18- to 34-year-old Americans, the coveted millennial market.
• Three years ago its 27-year-old co-founder, Evan Spiegel, refused an offer of US$3bn from Facebook. Today Snapchat is reportedly worth as much as US$25bn (making it a “mega unicorn” of the likes of Uber and Airbnb) – and Spiegel is engaged to Miranda Kerr.
• Go easy with the selfies, too. The lenses are good fun and quite remarkably flattering but, in 18 months of use, they have become loaded. The flower crown and the puppy dog ears, in particular, are now seen as cliche, even “basic”. Apply sparingly.

In my opinion, I believe that the writer of this article is talking very negatively about Snapchat and how that everyone is using this everyday, especially the younger audience. Since I am one of those audiences that would usually keep upto date with the people I am following on Snapchat, I therefore believe that this is a good thing since you get to know what is going on in peoples lives. Also, on one section of snapchat, there is a place where there are frequent news updates, therefore this means that not only are Snapchat allowing their users to talk to others via the app, but the audience also have got the option to go onto the news articles and keep updated with the news around the world.