Whenever a new form of media comes out, the American public is afraid of what will happen. As Baym said, "new media causes cultural anxiety" (Polity). This anxiety is nothing new in the American public's eye ever since the early 2000's we have felt anxiety towards the internet. But as smartphones and other new forms of media began to enter our lives, we as a culture have been timid. Applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat have made it easy to share information. But they have also made it easy for people to gain unprecedented access to your life. It is this interaction that most if not all, of the anxiety and fear of technology, stems from.
When Snapchat hit the Appstore in late 2011 it became a popular way for people to share only porn. While not the intention of the creators at first, it was what paid the bills. The public was very concerned that teens would use it to send 'naughty pictures' to one another(Wortham,2013). And at first, the public had a reason to be fearful because that was entirely why teens were using the app. But Then something changed, people began using the app to talk to each other between photo exchanges. This use brought the app out of the gutter of app stores, and onto the phones of teens across the country. This newfound popularity caused teens to stop sending the 'naughty pictures', but instead allowed them to share information and communicate with one another. Yet their parents had not forgotten the not so distant past which was filled with filth and smut. The people that had the control over the content of the phones had not forgotten the danger that lurked on the other end of the app. This anxiety stemmed from the interactivity of the app itself (Polity). People were able to communicate like they never had before. It wasn't like when Facebook first came out where you could post a status and people could only look at the text. Or perhaps leave a comment on a photo that you posted for the world to see. Now people were able to send something as rapid as a text message with none of the permanence. In 2012 the New York Times interviewed Evan Spiegel one of the creators of Snapchat. In this interview, Evan mentions how the platform evolved, and in the beginning, he knew that he wouldn't be able to build a business on sexting (Wortham,2013). He wanted the company to be more than just the easiest way to send some nude photos to someone and he was able to change the way that it was perceived. As mentioned the platform became part of the social media lexicon, and even Spiegel noticed that is was mentioned among the likes of Facebook and twitter. It was once they achieved this level of stardom that they began to understand where they stood in the scheme of social media. Snapchat stood to change the opinion of culture, and it did. Through its early years, the platform convinced an entire country and a planet. That sending images to each other would be as big as the telegram. As Marshall McCluan said, "the medium is the message"(Polity), and the message from the medium that is Snapchat was that regardless of how something starts. The end result of what the medium becomes may surprise you.
-Alexander W. Jones
Works Cited
Polity. (n.d.). Personal Connections in the Digital Age. In N. K. Baym, Digital Media and Society (pp. 22-49). Polity.
Wortham, J. (2013, February 8). A Growing App Lets You See It, Then You Don’t. New York Times.
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