Unlike some users, when freshman Emily Chanak uses Snapchat, she keeps her clothes on.
Chanak uses the free app to send funny pictures to her mom, but has heard of people using the app for a more sensual matter — sexting.
“I’ve heard some people use it for sexting because the pictures are automatically deleted,” she said. “Using that would make a lot more sense than just texting.”
Although people like Chanak have heard of people using it for sexting, that was not the creator’s intention.
“The ephemeral content on Snapchat allows users to express who they are without worrying about managing their ‘personal brand’ online,” said co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel in an email.
However, some students may use the app to sext because of the experience.
“The draw with sexting is that it’s enticing and it has a certain danger to it that makes it exciting,” said Dryw Dworsky, assistant professor in psychology. “People sext for so many different reasons: to entice a partner, to potentially keep a partner.”
Because the app is supposed to erase the pictures after the user views it for a couple seconds, that may keep the sexting experience safer, Dworsky said.
“This app is ingenius because it removes what’s so dangerous about sexting, which is other people seeing the pictures,” Dworsky said.
Users should be wary of being lulled into a false sense of security, as there are ways to go against the app and save pictures, he said.
Chanak said her friends have found a way to save the pictures by taking a screenshot of the image.
“[Users] can still save them,” Chanak said. “I’ve tried before, but I can’t do it.”
If a person’s image gets screenshot, Snapchat lets the user know and that knowledge may be damaging for some users.
“The implications are pretty severe and traumatic,” Dworsky said. “It can be highly shaming and highly embarrassing.”
Although the app is relatively new, the sexting trend is not.
“The exchange of erotic material back and forth is not a new phenomenon,” Dworsky said. “[Snapchat] is just another way to communicate with people.”
That rethinking communication was a motivation for Spiegel to create the app.
“We want to bring fun and spontaneity to digital communication,” Spiegel said. “It’s fun to communicate with photos.”
Chanak uses the app for just that reason.
After downloading the app two months ago, she said she enjoys sending funny and innocent pictures.
“I like to send my mom pictures of like double-chins,” Chanak said. “She laughs.”
Sophomore Kaylee Spurgeon downloaded the app because her friends had it and she uses it to communicate with them.
However, Spurgeon said if the Snapchat sexting trend continues, then she could see the end of the app.
“If it really becomes an issue, then I could see [Snapchat] getting shut down,” she said. “Sexting is looked down upon.”
