USA TODAY columnist Steven Petrow offers advice about digital etiquette.
Q: My daughter is in college and she uses the Snapchat app on her phone to communicate with her friends. I don't quite understand the benefits as compared to texting or email, but she tells me that every message disappears in seconds, which allows her to be a bit freer in what photos she sends. Naturally, as a dad, this worries me. Naturally, she tells me not to worry. Should I be?
A: In this hyper-connected age, all parents have good reasons to worry about their teenage offspring – but I wouldn't put this one at the top of your list. In recent years, a plethora of new photo messaging apps have gained currency with 'tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings. One of the best and most downloaded is Snapchat, with more than 700 million photos and videos (known as "snaps") sent daily. What makes it different is that photos self-destruct after a few seconds (currently between one and ten, a number that the sender sets) and are also deleted from Snapchat's servers. Poof, gone!
Great idea, right? Especially when most parents worry not only about their kids' privacy but also about their online digital histories. I asked my 14-year-old niece why she loves Snapchat. She told me: "It's a more relaxed way of talking to people and it's more exciting 'cause you can see the person you're talking to and you also have the option of adding a caption or not."
How important to her is it that the photos are soon deleted? She said: "Because I know it won't be saved, it does influence what I send. But I don't send anything that I would hate to be saved anyway." That's a very smart niece! She even added that if the recipient takes a screenshot of the snap, the app tells you.
Ah, the screenshot. Of course that's the big Achilles heel of this app, So Dad, that's one thing you can worry about. It's as easy as one click to take a screenshot of a snap, thereby preserving an image that was intended to be fleeting. The good news is that most users know better than to do that. As one teen said online: "Taking screenshots ruins the whole spirit of the thing. If someone takes a screenshot of one of your snaps, you should not send that person snaps any longer, period."
My advice to your daughter: Don't risk getting caught in an embarrassing screenshot; keep your snaps to funny faces and pictures of your cat.
Source USA TODAY
Q: My daughter is in college and she uses the Snapchat app on her phone to communicate with her friends. I don't quite understand the benefits as compared to texting or email, but she tells me that every message disappears in seconds, which allows her to be a bit freer in what photos she sends. Naturally, as a dad, this worries me. Naturally, she tells me not to worry. Should I be?
A: In this hyper-connected age, all parents have good reasons to worry about their teenage offspring – but I wouldn't put this one at the top of your list. In recent years, a plethora of new photo messaging apps have gained currency with 'tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings. One of the best and most downloaded is Snapchat, with more than 700 million photos and videos (known as "snaps") sent daily. What makes it different is that photos self-destruct after a few seconds (currently between one and ten, a number that the sender sets) and are also deleted from Snapchat's servers. Poof, gone!
Great idea, right? Especially when most parents worry not only about their kids' privacy but also about their online digital histories. I asked my 14-year-old niece why she loves Snapchat. She told me: "It's a more relaxed way of talking to people and it's more exciting 'cause you can see the person you're talking to and you also have the option of adding a caption or not."
How important to her is it that the photos are soon deleted? She said: "Because I know it won't be saved, it does influence what I send. But I don't send anything that I would hate to be saved anyway." That's a very smart niece! She even added that if the recipient takes a screenshot of the snap, the app tells you.
Ah, the screenshot. Of course that's the big Achilles heel of this app, So Dad, that's one thing you can worry about. It's as easy as one click to take a screenshot of a snap, thereby preserving an image that was intended to be fleeting. The good news is that most users know better than to do that. As one teen said online: "Taking screenshots ruins the whole spirit of the thing. If someone takes a screenshot of one of your snaps, you should not send that person snaps any longer, period."
My advice to your daughter: Don't risk getting caught in an embarrassing screenshot; keep your snaps to funny faces and pictures of your cat.
Source USA TODAY
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