Facebook has been dead for quite some time, I feel. Nowadays, when I use it, it is mostly to pass time, view people’s new photos (which are mostly babies, by the way) or watch those cool “Tasty” videos to get some new recipes. There is not much content or breadth to my Facebook sessions - they are usually pretty bare and nothing more than a bad habit. Amongst the younger generation, it is truly a corpse. It was Snapchat, in the kitchen, with a “story feature”. Apparently, this new young generation likes to “live in the moment”, at least according to the video. Thinking about it now though, I suppose it is part of their whole “YOLO” movement. Well, Snapchat delivers to their needs. Their 10 second long photos, (which, by the way, something that was not mentioned was that neither the videos, or photos sent on Snapchat can be chosen from a photo library, they MUST be taken in real time, thereby authenticating the “in the moment” idea) and story features allows users to share with their friends what they ate for breakfast, lunch AND dinner, rather than share 3 photos on Instagram. While Snapchat is all the rage, I cannot think of any practical uses for it in the classroom where they physically USE the app. Now, I can think of a few lesson ideas where the “idea” is used, but not the app itself. Because of this, I struggle to see the value in Snapchat in the classroom. There are other social media applications that I feel are better suited for the classroom, and I intend to use those, but Snapchat may just be one app I let casually drift by until it is overrun by something new. At that point, I’ll reevaluate and judge the classroom usefulness of whoever murders Snapchat...
Niestat, Casey. (2014, October 2). Snapchat Murders Facebook. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/kKSr6h5-fCU