SnapChat is likely the hottest name in social media right now, and the social media application has spent a serious amount of time courting criticism. The latest update controversy may be a little bit tame compared to some of the allegations that have been levelled against the company, but that doesn’t endear the company’s software to parents any more.
According to one teacher, who had her story picked up by Business Insider earlier today, the Snapchat application is causing an incredible amount of disruption as teenagers attempt to download the application and use its new features. Tracie Schroeder apparently had to confiscate the phones of her students in order to get the class back on track.
SnapChat ruins teacher’s day
The update to the popular SnapChat application came through on Thursday, and those who know instantly got their hands on the new features and did their best to use them during class according to Ms. Schroeder, the teacher tweeted on Thursday afternoon complaining about the behaviors of the students during the day.
Business Insider reached out to her after noting that tweet, and got an interesting response from the teacher. According to Schroeder, the SnapChat update caused havoc in her class. Describing the behavior of her classroom she told the outlet “They seriously could not keep away from it. I even had one girl crawl under the table with her phone.”
Schroeder says that SnapChat is the worst thing to come to the classroom in her 16 years as a teacher. The mania that accompanied the update is probably not going to last forever. According to Shroeder, “For quite awhile now, kids have had a real anxiety about being separated from their phone, but today it was near panic. I am hoping by tomorrow some of the novelty will have worn off and we can get back to business.”
SnapChat continues to rout parents
Whatever is popular with kids is likely to be blamed for all sorts of the behaviors that young people, and particularly teenagers. SnapChat creates another level of problems for worried adults, however, in that the messages shared on the messaging application disappear.
That adds a level of mystery to something that most parents already have a degree of trouble understanding. The rumors that kids use the app for little more than sexting and bullying adds to the concern of the parents and teachers who are non-plussed by the addiction of the kids in their care to the application.
Short of banning their children from owning a smart phone, which New York classrooms actually did, there is little that adults can do to prevent young people from using SnapChat, or its alternatives, all day long. At least they can have some comfort in the ephemeral nature of the service, and hope that a single picture doesn’t impact the lives of their children. At best they can hope they stop staring at their SnapChat conversations in the classroom.
