Into the Driver's Seat

Snapchat has changed a lot in the past few years. Frequent updates means the app looks and works almost nothing like it originally did. 

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is so aggressive with making changes to the app that it can be hard to keep up with how Snapchat really works, even if you're a regular user. To make things easier for you and newbies, Pocket-lint has compiled this straightforward guide. By the end of it, you'll know every facet of the app. And when the next update arrives, be sure to check back here, because we'll explain that, too.

Via John Evans

A new study lends credence to what you’ve probably always suspected: social media is having a pretty negative effect on teenagers — Instagram and Snapchat being the worst culprits. The study, published today and called “Status of Mind,” was conducted by researchers for the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK. The researchers surveyed 1,479 British youths ages 14-24, asking them how they felt the different social media networks effected their mental health. They took in several factors such as body image, sleep deprivation, bullying, and self-identity.

 

The results suggest the two worst social media networks for kids are Instagram and Snapchat, as they had terrible scores for body image, bullying, and anxiety. Twitter and Facebook weren’t much better, though. YouTube was the only one that apparently inspired more positive feelings than negative ones.

 

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

 

http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-its-influence

 

Via Gust MEES, Jim Lerman

Snapchat is arguably the most popular social media app around. But if you’re one of those folks who’s downloaded it to your smartphone and you're still not quite sure what to do (and you don’t want to ask one of the teenagers you know), here’s a quick getting-started guide to show you the basics.

What is Snapchat?

One of the things that Snapchat is best known for is the ephemeral nature of the content - you take a photo or video and send it to a friend and they have a limited number of seconds (up to 10 seconds maximum) to view the content before it disappears.

Before you send your snap, you can mark it up with text, stickers, or special lenses that give your selfie a silly look (big cartoon eyes, puking rainbows… it sounds odd but quickly becomes strangely charming)....

Via Jeff Domansky, Os Ishmael, malek, John van den Brink, Marc Wachtfogel, Ph.D., Jess Chalmers