Like many, many parents, I have literally spent the past 4 years of my teenagers’ lives (I have 4 girls) observing them with a mixture of incredulity and horror as they Snapchatted the shit out of life. Gurning into their phones, pouting, taking surprised faces, puzzled faces, photos of the dog, of me, of the table, of absolutely fecking anything and I have constantly been wondering WHY?
WHY do they get so obsessed with keeping their streaks going? (If you still don’t know what a streak is then you really are a parent in denial). WHY do they get their sisters to keep their streaks going when they are on a DofE weekend and aren’t allowed their phones? WHY does their phone buzz constantly day and night?
WHY OH WHY?
So after one failed attempt by my eldest daughter to get me on Snapchat a couple of years ago – she put the app onto my phone, set me up with an account and there it sat – she has finally managed to get me use it…and yes, you heard me right…SHE got ME to use it. More WHY’s. WHY does my daughter want me on Snapchat? WHY would she actually be encouraging this 47 year old mum to engage in her world? WHY did she insist I added her best mates – despite my protestations that I’m sure they would rather die than be hooked up with an old codger like me sporting bunny ears and a halo?
WHY OH WHY?
It took me a while to get to grips with it. This Snapchat monster is huge! There’s so much to it and I’m still learning. A week on and it’s still work in progress for me, but then I’m still struggling to use our telly with its four sodding remotes, so no surprises there. My daughters have been patient thus far, although I suspect their patience is wearing thin…because I like it! And this means I’m actually (against every single fibre I thought existed in my body and brain) using it! I’M SPAMMING MY DAUGHTERS!
WHY OH WHY?
I’m actually excited by the positives and I can honestly say that I thought I’d have been more likely to say I’d join the WI (and that ain’t happening). Revenge by spam is just one good thing. I stare into my phone and my face looks a bit wrinkly and shit and then I add a filter and I suddenly look amazing: all plumped up and flawless set in a hazy tone with huge doey eyes and something frivolous on my head like a crown of flowers and it makes me forget that actually I’m going slightly grey and have a wattle. Seriously, you can hide your wattle with a sticker – what’s not to like for a woman facing her half century? I love the fact that you can’t take yourself too seriously on Snapchat. It’s fun and it’s stupid. It’s so completely and utterly superficial that it whisks you away from the realities of life as it actually is and how you actually are – if you let it. Or you can take a photo of yourself in all your fat-arsed glory and send it off to a friend with a chuckle that you will never see that photo again and they will only get to see it for a matter of seconds, before it disappears into the abyss. At first I struggled with not being able to see the photo after I’d sent it – I’m a control freak and I wanted to ‘check’ how I’d looked. But I got used to letting the photo go and now I don’t care! Because now I realise that no-one else cares! It’s refreshing. Kids send photos of themselves looking tired and grumpy and spotty and dishevelled and that’s the whole point. This isn’t Instagram and the ‘take a 100 shots for the one perfect photo to put out there’. This is Snapchat with its ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude and I really kind of like that.
There are pointless games that make me laugh. Like the one where it tells you to pull a … face and take a photo and then it adds a caption, such as ‘how you look when…’ you play it with a mate and it’s as time wasting as watching the GBBO but it makes you giggle for a moment in time and when life is stressful and a bit crappy, that can only be good, right?
I have spent 4 years telling my daughters how pointless it is and what a waste of time it is and I’ve been saying it as a negative, whilst all the time missing the point!
Then there’s the actual creative side to it. My daughter and I spent 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back creating a Bitmoji of me: the choice of details was mind blowing, down to eye shape, make up and balayage (google it). Sometimes I’m so pleased with the photo I’m about to send off to an unsuspecting daughter in the middle of the day telling them I’m on a dog walk, that I’m sad to let it go. So I may screenshot it for posterity. You can choose filters and backgrounds and moving stickers – there’s a flossing avocado for christ’s sake! I have been known to post one of my Snapchats on Instagram – IT WAS THAT GOOD! Snapchat is sharpening my brain!
I can totally see now why it appeals to a teen. I can see why it appeals to kids who are actually way younger than the allowable age of 13. So what can possibly be the problem with this, frankly hilarious time waster?
WHY should parents be worried?
Well, I hate to spoil a fantastic party, but the world of Snapchat cannot be controlled by us parents. We can get an account and feel as if we’re part of the gang, or even silent stalkers, but we cannot police it. There is no way for a parent to know what our kids are posting. Unlike Instagram, we can’t have our child’s account on our phone. They can send photos to who they like with no traceable footprint. They can look up hashtags that can take them to the darkest corners of the Internet and we will never know.
The ironic thing is that as a parent the thing that really annoyed me about Snapchat was my daughters’ seeming obsession with it. It appeared to me to be relentless – a constant pressure to keep it up. I worried for their sanity, for their school work, their ability to focus on what actually, to me, mattered. But now I am less worried about all of that, because I understand it. What I am worried about is my inability to police it.
In this sense, however, it is no different to anything associated with the Internet. As parents there is no way we can keep up with what’s out there. It’s completely naive to think we can. We can of course try, but our kids will always be one step ahead. We can’t ban them from using it, because they will be pushed to be devious and will find a way. The most important thing we can do is communicate with them. To talk openly about the dangers of Snapchat and the Internet as a whole. We need to understand WHY there is an age limit but also understand WHY our children are desperate to access it younger. We need to explain why they can’t, but expect them to get it anyway, the minute we buy them their first phone. (My youngest got it in Year 7 and I’m not even sure I knew).
We need to be aware.
We need to make sure they are safeguarding themselves, for example turning off their location.
We need to talk, not prevent.
Perhaps even get Snapchat yourself. Engage with your kids on their turf. Spam them, chat to them in the middle of the day. As a teen I wanted to keep my distance from my parents, so embrace the fact that they might not mind you posting the odd photo with a bit of chat. It makes me look young, it makes me feel young and it’s safer than hormone replacement therapy…I think.
