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I have three stories to share. First story: A mother is concerned about her 10 year old daughter who has seemingly overnight has become irritable, easily tearful, and often checking whether mommy was angry with her. This mother had a rule about limiting phone and iPad use, and some days would not allow her daughter to use these devices. The mother found out, however, that the daughter was sneaking into the parents' bedroom and using the iPad to access her BeReal account. BeReal is a social media platform that encourages its users to take an impromptu picture of themselves when they get a daily notification. When the mother discovered her daughter's secret she deleted the BeReal account, much to the daughter's chagrin. After a couple of days though, the daughter's mood stabilized again, and she no longer asked if her mother was mad at her out of a guilty conscience. When the mother asked her daughter why she lied and sneaked around to access BeReal, the daughter replied "I couldn't let my streak break."
Second story: A 13 year old girl was going to summer camp for a week and they weren't allowed to bring their cell phones. She asked her mother to keep her "snap-streaks" going for her while she was away at camp. The mother obliged by daily posting several reply "snaps" for her daughter's Snapchat account. After all, she didn't want her daughter to lose her streaks. When the daughter returned from camp, the mother hugged her and asked how her week went. "Fine", the daughter replied, "Did you maintain my streaks? Can I see my phone now?" The mother could sadly tell where her daughter's priorities lay.
Third story: A 15 year old boy was approached by his parents about his schoolwork. He was an honors student, but recently didn't seem to care about his grades. Furthermore, he was getting into trouble at school for not paying attention and excessively using his phone during class. The father sat his son down and requested that he hand over his phone. After several minutes of arguing and tears, he finally relented under threat of losing his phone completely. When asked why he was so distraught about losing his phone, the boy confessed that he had over 200 streaks he was maintaining on Snapchat. The parents decided to suspend their son's social media accounts for a month. What happened after that? The boy's grades improved. He became more physically active and emotionally stable. He actually thanked his parents for taking away "that drug".
What is a streak? In BeReal and Snapchat, a streak happens when two users exchange "snaps" or pictures with each other. In Snapchat, users will get a fire emoji next to their username if they've had a streak of 3 days. Different emojis will show up based on how long a streak has gone on. Snapchat will also add emojis indicating two users are "best friends" if they have exchanged the most snaps with each other.
The longer two people maintain their streak, the more they will level-up. A user will get a double pink heart emoji by their username if they've kept a streak going with their "best friend" for two months or more. Consider what is going on for tweens and teens developmentally. This age group is naturally oriented to social belonging. They are highly motivated to be part of a group and attain social status within that group. Snapchat has created the perfect bait to get teens to compulsively use their program. It preys upon their developmental need for social belonging. So it makes sense that a child who wants to be seen as having "best friend" status with several kids online would hyper-focus on maintaining their streaks. For many kids, their online social persona becomes more important and more valuable than their actual social status in the real world. Why would Snapchat go to such lengths to get its users to connect with it several times a day? Money! In 2023, Snapchat earned 4.6 billion dollars in advertising revenue.
If you are a parent who has let your child have Snapchat or other social media, please be aware that your child is considered a "user" by the social media company. The company's main agenda is not to provide entertainment or help kids with their social connections. The main agenda is to get your child's eyeballs on the advertisements, because they are so easily influenced to want to purchase and consume what is being advertised.
They don't care that your child is having anxiety about losing their streaks, which equates to losing their social standing. They don't care that your child will take extreme measures to change their appearance or engage in risky behaviors in their desperate attempt to gain social approval online. Parents, the best thing you could do for your child is not let them have social media until they are old enough to pay for their own phone.