A Snapchat outage on Monday left millions unable to send disappearing filtered messages to their friends. This was a bad enough problem for users of Snapchat but the problem intensified when service resumed and they realized their “Streaks” had ended. Snapchat has used a system they call “Snap Streaks” to encourage users to send messages to each other more consistently. Every day you send a message adds a number to your streak. When the app was down for nearly an entire day, some people were unable to send messages within the 24hr deadline. This caused their streaks to end.
People took to Twitter to address their concerns with Snapchat. They complained that their streaks of 25, 100, and some even 500 days had been lost and they were not happy about it. Snap Inc’s support division stated that they were working on restoring streaks that were lost during the outage and asked folks to be patient and report if they had lost their records.
What Parents Should Know
The focus on streaks is simply another symptom of a culture that is telling our kids that the highest form of acceptance is being accepted socially by your peers. My full thoughts on this topic are on a video on our Facebook page but I’ll summarize here. Many of our kids are very very serious about their social media accounts. They are highly concerned with the number of followers they have and how many likes their pictures and videos get. Some of them have separate accounts, on one of which they post the version of themselves they want everyone to see, and the other is used for their silly, nerdy, or even sexy side. This social media self-image focus can be cause for serious concerns. It’s important for us as parents to help our kids understand who they are, what they should be focusing on, and what healthy use of social media looks like. Their friends are “all doing it.” But you may have to be the first parent to decide to put your guard up.
(External Link) You can watch my video here:
