Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel explained the video messaging app to parents who might not understand its function in a YouTube video posted on Tuesday.
Revealing why kids sometimes take hundreds of photos a day, Spiegel first talked about how photographs have changed in the four-minute video.
“Historically, photographs have been used to save really important memories, major life moments,” he said, “but today, with the advent of the mobile phone and this idea of a connected camera, pictures are being used for talking. So when you see your children taking a zillion pictures of things that you would never take a picture of, it’s because they are using photographs to talk.”
He also discussed the evolution of social media, and how it has helped shape Snapchat and the way people take pictures and share moments these days.
“When social media started, it was based on the desktop computer, and it was about accumulation. You would take a thousand pictures at a party, and you would upload your 100 favorites to the Internet and all your friends would look at them and comment on them,” Spiegel said. “Now, the mobile phone has really empowered the idea of instant expression, which is really showing someone where you are and how you are feeling in the moment. And this is important as it relates to identity, because that’s one of the things that’s at the core of social media.”
Identity, Spiegel said, is a major part of the social media app, as instant expression has changed the way we identify ourselves. Whereas “identity is everything I’ve ever done,” instant expression says “my identity is who I am right now,” the 25-year-old digital entrepreneur said.
He then described the Snapchat platform, going into detail about the three screens that make up the “snap” and the “chat.”
“Snapchat always starts with a snap. In order to start a conversation, you need to take a picture,” Spiegel said.
The app’s recently added “My Story” function is a collection of snaps from the day in chronological order, which makes it different from all other social media that generally post updates to users’ feeds in reverse chronological order, he said.
Snapchat was created by Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown. Users take photos, record videos, add text and even draw on them before sending them to a selected list of recipients. Users set a time limit up to 10 seconds, after which they will vanish.
The app has 100 million daily active users, with over 400 million snaps sent every day, and 71 percent of those users are under the age of 25.