“My Generation” column on Snapchat: What Snapchat taught Generation Z

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I am currently in Bordeaux on a language internship. A semester full of French wine, French cuisine and French charm. Although I don’t particularly notice the latter. Because: I hardly spend any time with the French!

The sad truth: During a language stay, you spend most of your time with other exchange students. And you don’t even speak French with them! But because it’s much easier for everyone: English – or German (wow, how many German exchange students!).

This completely misses the point of the stay, but it is not without interest. You will learn almost nothing about French culture, but you will learn a lot about other countries and customs. An Icelandic man who grew up on a farm talks about his flock of sheep, and a Mexican woman talks about her life in a city of over a million people—both two hours away from school.

And since we are all part of Generation Z, we naturally tried to interact through every possible communication channel. It turns out: some people don’t know WhatsApp, others still use Facebook, and Instagram isn’t available in Norway. Ultimately, the only common denominator across all countries was Snapchat. Thus, the very app that is so often ridiculed, disparaged, or called a sexting app appears to be the most widely used around the world.

That’s why I want to stand up for Snapchat. In the app, you can send yourself photos of random situations, add text to them, and send them to all your friends. Once they view the message, it will disappear forever.

It is probably this lack of commitment that has caused my generation to break down for the past ten years. In the app, you don’t have important conversations, but share small fragments of your life with close friends without opening your office.

You could even say that Snapchat laid the foundation for certain characteristics of Generation Z. Thanks to Snapchat, we have incredibly fast recording capabilities – we had to transcribe sent images within seconds before they would delete themselves. With such a fast pace of life, we also have a well-trained short-term memory and a pitiful long-term memory. Last but not least, this is the app that ignited our love for visual content. Thanks to Snapchat, we’ve learned that a picture is worth a thousand words. And this applies to any language.

Noah Dibbeysi (22 years old) studies social sciences at the University of Bern. She writes to Blick every other Friday.

Source: Blick