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Diffusions of Innovations



The Innovation of Snapchat



   Snapchat is a mobile app that allows people to send pictures and videos to each for only a short period of time. It was created and displayed to the public in 2011.  The co-founder of Snapchat, Evan Siegel, created this app as a way to encourage a natural flow of interaction through the use of images. It allows you to have a private person-to-person conversation through the use of timed images. They're all different types of filters you can put on your images in order to make your conversations fun and interesting!

   I think the reason, why the idea of Snapchat has caught on and spread quickly throughout the world, is because it gives you the ability to express yourself through a unique conversation. All the different filters within Snapchat allow people to be their real and funny self by not having to take conversations so seriously. The use of the different components on Snapchat caused the app to spreadly widely over social media because it allowed people to communicate with each other in a creative way. 

  The creation and continuous development of Snapchat correlates with the diffusion of innovations because they both focus on constantly renewing ideas and spreading those ideas through technology's rapid pace. According to Everett Rogers, the diffusion of innovations explains that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system. He argues that there are four main elements that influence the spread of an idea. They are the innovation itself, the communication channels it spreads through, time, and the social system. The idea of Snapchat has gone through and is still in the process of diffusion of innovations. The innovation of Snapchat itself has been communicated to both millennials and Generation X people through all social media platforms.



   Snapchat has used these social media platforms to constantly convey new and exciting information about their original idea, which is the Snapchat app itself. Through the lens of this theory, Snapchat is deemed to be very successful among our current social system because the innovation has been widely adopted within the general public. Almost everyone on social media has the Snapchat app and almost everyone in the world has at least one social media account. Snapchat's following and customer base is self-sustaining in that people who have the app have had it for years. The people who downloaded the app from the moment it came about are considered the early adopters because they were intrigued with the process from the beginning, compared to the people who recently within the past year have downloaded the app are considered laggards because they are joining Snapchat very late in the game. People usually become early adopters because they are people who are inspired by change and new ways of thinking. They are the people who thrive on trying new things. The early adopters of Snapchat are people who are unique and creative in their everyday lives. Early adopters are usually people largely engaged with social media as a whole, for example, influencers are usually early adopters because they try to apps when they first come out and work to get people to become users of the app as well.  

  Although, the Snapchat is very successful in society today, there are some downsides and negatives that are associated with Snapchat. Snapchat is considered to be one of the biggest apps that create poor teen mental health. Research suggests that young teens who spend more than 2 hours a day on social media are more likely to have psychological stress. On Snapchat, young teens can be tempted to share inappropriate photos or take part in cyberbullying because the app allows you to send photos that can disappear shortly after you send them. Also, the development of Snapchat's geolocation filter allows for people to see where you are and what you are doing at all times. This filter can be extremely dangerous because it could lead to predators being to able to know your every move. Snapchat is a great way to communicate, but it is important to make sure you are communicating the right way to others when using the app.

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