You want to be happy, don’t you? Ta da! Snapchat to the rescue!!
A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan explain that though, face-to-face communication is still the gold standard, but that Snapchat is being used to communicate with close friends in a new and often more enjoyable way, as stated by lead author Joseph Bayer.
Over two weeks, researchers studied 154 university students in what is called “experience sampling” — measuring how people think and feel at the exact time they are having those thoughts or feelings. Six times a day, participants were texted a link to a survey with five questions about how they felt, what their last interaction was, and how that interaction affected them. Based on these results, Snapchat interactions were associated with more positive emotions than those that happened through Facebook or other social media. However, Snapchat was viewed as less “ supportive” than other interactions – which may be as a result of Snaps being directed toward you, with little conversation involved.
Researchers believe that Snapchat is making us happier because it’s more about sharing small moments than the life milestones that are often shared on Facebook. And the nature of the medium means that interactions are a little more intimate, a little less filtered (except when your friends are vomiting rainbows), and a little less planned. Joseph Bayer also said:
Participants viewed Snapchat as similar to face-to-face conversations because they involved everyday discussions, are not recorded for future references, and typically occurred with close relationships.
The fleeting nature of Snaps ( which users can determine by setting an expiration timer) also means that we don’t dwell on them, like we might with Facebook posts.
They found that when participants had Snapchat interactions, they felt more positive emotions than when they had Facebook interactions, and paid the most attention to Snapchat messages. That might be because people are not too bothered about how to present themselves on Snapchat, since the images disappear in seconds.