Snapchat and Platform Addiction
Can we take control of this process before it’s too late?
It goes by many names: platform capitalism, the attention economy, dopamining, the surveillance economy. Whichever label you want to tag it with the effects are clear. We have FOMO and depression instead of collaboration and elation.
The designer and researcher Paulina Kowalska, in her thesis How Technology Influences the Modern World: a Short Study on Augmented Reality, analyses the impact of the technology using examples like Pokemon Go, Snapchat and Ikea Place. As well as this the designer discusses other concerns connected with AR like the crossing of legal boundaries and activism, while also forecasting into the near future.
When it comes to our attentions we have the choice to be either passive or active, and the associated language can help us shape our arguments and form counter narratives. The media theorist Geert Lovink writes in his book Sad by Design:
“A critical platform approach should, first of all, shy away from any solution based on the addiction metaphor: the online billions are not sick and I’m not a patient either. The problem is not our lack of willpower but our collective inability to enforce change.”
Read Paulina’s chapter below and decide for yourself whether or not we can take control of this process.
One day, back in 2011, a Stanford University student was presenting his final project for product design class — a mobile app, where people could share photos or short videos with their friends. These files would, however, disappear forever in a matter of seconds. Evan Spiegel received mostly negative feedback for his project, as other students were sure that very few people would want to use it. And those who would, they said, would use it for sexting. The following years proved how misguided that feedback was. Snapchat expanded its offer, and today one can also send stories that last up to 24 hours, coverage of live events and stories with various AR filters applied. At first, the innovative feature was that your stories had to be saved within the app just before posting; you could not send images or videos from your camera roll taken some time earlier. The second important factor was the fact that stories disappeared, whereas on other social media such as Facebook posts remained on the Internet forever.
The creation of the Short Messaging System (SMS) changed the method of communication, and Snapchat shifted it even further. It allowed exchanging more than words — visible emotions in real-time communication. Snapchat is an interactive and fun way to convey a message. It gained enormous popularity among Millennials, which is an excellent target for business. According to the official website, 186 million people use Snapchat every day worldwide. An average user of this app spends 30 minutes daily using it. Snapchat used this opportunity to expand its services for advertising. Snapchat filters encouraged people to take selfies, as they enhance boring photos, which suddenly seem exciting and attractive. This approach to messaging gives the feeling of seeing someone almost like face to face with a bit of virtual fun. Also, the idea of controlling how long someone can view your photo or video, especially when it’s something provoking or ridiculous, is pretty comforting.
In 2016, Snapchat introduced smart glasses dedicated to recording video from the viewer’s perspective without the need of using a phone. Spectacles record in High Definition, are waterproof and stylish. In 2018, a second generation of Spectacles was released. Today there are three models of Spectacles 2 available for purchase — the cheapest costs 729.99 PLN.
In October 2016, Snapchat introduced Snapstreak, which represents the number of consecutive days two people have sent a snap to each other. In other words, when a friend sends a snap, you have 24 hours to send one back to keep the number growing. This way, two people get something they don’t want to lose — and get addicted as well. Young children are especially prone to social media addiction, and when it comes to Snapstreaks children often give their username and password to friends, so that they can maintain streaks in case for some reason they can’t do it themselves. It’s because of examples like this social media addiction is often compared to the obesity epidemic.
Snapchat and other similar apps provide us with an escape from reality. Similarly to gambling, drug or alcohol addictions, social media notifications give us a moment of high, the feeling of pleasure and joy. Social media addiction is a common problem.
Similarly to Pokemon Go, there are a lot of accidents connected with phone usage while driving. An average person having an account only on Facebook already receives a bunch of notifications daily from the app itself, but also others like text messages, phone calls, mail, or calendar events. No wonder it became fairly normal for people to check their phones while driving, putting at risk not only themselves but other vehicles and pedestrians.
There are specific applications, such as Moment, that control the time you spend on your phone and notify you when you’ve exceeded a set limit or the overall average. However, such functions are, in most cases, not sufficient to fight addiction. As for 2019, the number of Snapchat’s monthly active users is over 300 million, whereas Instagram, Snapchat’s primary competitor, has over 800 million. Instagram was founded a year before Snapchat and has a slightly different profile, although it currently has similar features. Instagram enables sharing of pictures and videos with the use of various filters. A while ago, it also introduced stories and face filters with Augmented Reality, similarly to Snapchat. However, Instagram is mainly about great pictures that receive tons of likes, which alter our expectations of reality. Perfect shots are an obsession, but can also break our self-esteem. As Travis Logan, IT enthusiast from protectyoungeyes.com, writes: “If Snapchat has monetized anxiety, then Instagram has monetized self-worth.”
While Snapchat or Instagram were brilliant business ideas that connect and entertain people, the effects of overdosed usage have gotten out of control. In 2017, a former Google insider Tristan Harris gave a Ted Talk entitled “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day.” He explains how companies use the knowledge of the human brain to use it against us by monetizing time and attention — like the aforementioned Snapstreak. However difficult this may be, Harris’ work is devoted to realigning technology with people’s best interest. The idea of sending a time-limited photo with a virtual filter encouraged people to take selfies and take part in the fun.
Snapchat changed the approach to messaging from plain words to AR-enhanced images that could be provoking or ridiculous and available only for a limited time. Although Snapchat introduced Augmented Reality, it is only the intermediate negative factor that leads to addiction and its implications. The main problem, similarly to Pokemon Go, is the competition. And the feeling of fulfilment, which makes us want more and more, and the more Pokemons or streaks we have, the bigger the pain in case of a loss. Social media apps like Snapchat transformed the way we interact with other people. Screen time often replaces real-life conversations. Although apps like Snapchat are supposed to keep us easily connected, it results in quite the opposite — our relationships get weaker. Bonding is limited only to typing messages and gives a convincing illusion of cultivating our relationships. Nowadays apps are designed to maintain our attention in front of a smartphone screen, and they’re doing a great job at it.
The question is — can we take control of this process before it’s too late?
This writing was taking from Paulina Kowalska’s thesis How Technology Influences the Modern World: a Short Study on Augmented Reality, published in 2019 at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology. The work was overseen by dr hab. Ewa Satalecka, mgr inż. Marcin Wichrowski and dr. Paulina Duda.
Paulina Kowalska is an Economics (Warsaw School of Economics) and Media Communication Design (Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw) graduate. Mostly interested in publication design and illustration. Check out Paulina’s portfolio here.
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