Some reasons young people enjoy Snapchat so much is that you can recreate your experiences and “let your friends live your day with you,” and since each clip or picture “lasts 24 hours,” there is a sense of truth and “urgency” to your posts, inspiring more creation of content (Neistat, 2014). Essentially it is a constant mode of sharing and communication. A famous Snap chatter Jerome Jarre even gets many people to meet up with him at Union Square via request on Snapchat. When asked most the young individuals were saying that they prefer Snapchat over Facebook because Facebook is only “alright” and that “none of” their friends use it anymore; Snapchat on the other hand represents the “now,” not perfect pictures or videos, but pictures showing the most current updates (Neistat, 2014). It speaks to the new generation.
Considering all this, now putting on my teacher hat, this video begs the question, how do we as teachers adjust to what appeals to the youth? We know the Snapchat is the current format, so how do we incorporate it into our lessons and activities? Well one thing that is apparent in the video is that this application has great potential to reach the masses. Jerome, for example, had “142,000 views in 16 minutes” for his request to get people to meet him in Union Square (Neistat, 2014). So we know that messages can be widespread relatively quickly, thus perhaps we could utilize this technology as a way to build social awareness to an issue dependent on your field of subject. Another possibility would be some sort of project-based assignment.
The fact that Snapchat does represent the present got me thinking of how I could specifically incorporate it into History, my subject, yet the mere opposite of “now.” The best idea I came up with is to create a daily or weekly log of stories/re-enactments of a historical event, or at least something relating to history. Or perhaps students could just making one comprehensive story as a project individually or in a groups, sent directly to the teacher. The issue would be the time limit that the Snaps are stored, and thus we might need to find a way to archive a story, such as filming the Snapchat as it is played. These are just some preliminary ideas and possibilities, but the point is, Snapchat can be utilized, and would likely appeal to the students of today more than other formats.
References:
Neistat, C. (2014 October 2). Snapchat Murders Facebook [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/kKSr6h5-fCU