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Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

survata.com

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Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#12
post #10

it has all the benefits of social media (instant, low-friction communication) and none of the privacy concerns of faceboob, g+, etc. unless of course we discover one day that snapchat messages all live on in some secret db ...

Considering that all un-viewed Snapchat's have to be stored, there's no need for a secret db. I've heard a rumor that snaps are stored in memecache and they are running in to scaling pains with the amount of un-viewed pictures stored in memory.

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#13
post #7

Nevermind teens. I'm 42. I use it with my adult siblings, cousins and friends. It's a delightful way to stay in touch. Sometimes it's a picture of my breakfast, or the weather outside, or our pets, or whatever other amusing moment is going on in our day that we'd laugh about if we were together. The ephemeral nature of the pictures and the ability to scribble on them is just delightful fun.

This is exactly what makes Snapchat fun and addictive. It takes all the friction out of taking photos and boils it right down. With Instagram, you spend a lot of time taking the right photo, the right lighting, the right filter, the right caption, etc. All of this is gone with Snapchat, because you know it'll be gone. People are happy to share slightly embarrassing stuff, like a mouthful of burger or no makeup.

Selecting who receives is easier, too, because you can uncheck some people. Instagram doesn't have that option, I'd need to create a new list with Facebook, and group texting is a lot more work.

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#14
post #7

Nevermind teens. I'm 42. I use it with my adult siblings, cousins and friends. It's a delightful way to stay in touch. Sometimes it's a picture of my breakfast, or the weather outside, or our pets, or whatever other amusing moment is going on in our day that we'd laugh about if we were together. The ephemeral nature of the pictures and the ability to scribble on them is just delightful fun.

Out of curiosity, why not use text messaging or WhatsApp? Both have more options that Snapchat.

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#15
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Max, Survata co-founder here. The 365 respondents were used as the denominator for calculating the % of teens that use a service (like Snapchat) regularly. So that's the sample size for the first chart shown in the link. (The margin of error on 365 respondents is about 5%). Naturally, we had to exclude the respondents who used no social services from the questions that asked about their favorite social service, li…

How does 365 data points give your conclusions any sort of statistical significance? Snapchat's numbers are allegedly over 30M, Facebook's are over 1.2B and Instagram's are 150M. I suggest reading "How to Lie with Statistics"[1] [1] http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/039... Edit: I guess that sounded a little harsh. No doubt, Snapchat's growth has been explosive and if this was just another blog…

Hi Nathan, Thanks for your comment. And no offense taken. :)

Most people are surprised how "few" respondents it takes to get to 5% margin of error at 95% confidence levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error#Different_conf...

In this case, .98/sqrt(365) = 5.1%

So, perhaps counterintuitively, 300-400 respondents gives good read on large populations (like Snapchat users...or the US population!).

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#16
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does 365 data points give your conclusions any sort of statistical significance? Snapchat's numbers are allegedly over 30M, Facebook's are over 1.2B and Instagram's are 150M. I suggest reading "How to Lie with Statistics"[1] [1] http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/039... Edit: I guess that sounded a little harsh. No doubt, Snapchat's growth has been explosive and if this was just another blog…

Hi Nathan, Thanks for your comment. And no offense taken. :) Most people are surprised how "few" respondents it takes to get to 5% margin of error at 95% confidence levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error#Different_conf... In this case, .98/sqrt(365) = 5.1% So, perhaps counterintuitively, 300-400 respondents gives good read on large populations (like Snapchat users...or the US population!).

Assuming the respondents are uniformly randomly chosen, it takes surprisingly few people to get a pretty high confidence interval. I'm not convinced that the respondents are uniform, but I expect that there is a sufficient distribution that the results are still interesting. 3x vs. 1.5x seems like a small difference to me, but I am not an investor or user, so....

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#17
post #14
post #7

Nevermind teens. I'm 42. I use it with my adult siblings, cousins and friends. It's a delightful way to stay in touch. Sometimes it's a picture of my breakfast, or the weather outside, or our pets, or whatever other amusing moment is going on in our day that we'd laugh about if we were together. The ephemeral nature of the pictures and the ability to scribble on them is just delightful fun.

Out of curiosity, why not use text messaging or WhatsApp? Both have more options that Snapchat.

It's faster and the ephemerality aspect doesn't exist on text or WhatsApp.

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#19
post #10

it has all the benefits of social media (instant, low-friction communication) and none of the privacy concerns of faceboob, g+, etc. unless of course we discover one day that snapchat messages all live on in some secret db ...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't a whole shit ton of Snapchat users passwords and the like stolen in 2013/2014?

Re: Snapchat usage triples among teens in the last year

#20
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Nathan, Thanks for your comment. And no offense taken. :) Most people are surprised how "few" respondents it takes to get to 5% margin of error at 95% confidence levels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error#Different_conf... In this case, .98/sqrt(365) = 5.1% So, perhaps counterintuitively, 300-400 respondents gives good read on large populations (like Snapchat users...or the US population!).

Assuming the respondents are uniformly randomly chosen, it takes surprisingly few people to get a pretty high confidence interval. I'm not convinced that the respondents are uniform, but I expect that there is a sufficient distribution that the results are still interesting. 3x vs. 1.5x seems like a small difference to me, but I am not an investor or user, so....

Yes, this exactly. The assumption of uniform distribution is not one to be taken lightly.
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