For the past few weeks, a fun app called Snapchat has been in the top ten apps. It has not only grown popular among many American teens, but many Carlmont students as well.

Snapchat is a smartphone app that allows you to quickly send photos and short videos back and forth.

Snapchat has been around since 2011, but this past April, about 150 million Snapchats were sent daily.

“When my friend got one over the summer, it looked really pointless at first,” said junior Claire Porter. “I got one and I would send really ugly, unattractive faces to my friends. Some of them send some pretty funny ones back, too.”

The app has a “timer” on it, so when the person receives a photo, they can only see it for ten seconds at the most. If the reciever of the photo is quick enough, they could easily screenshot the photo.

“I can send the weirdest pictures to people and they’ll only last like 3 seconds,” said freshman Amelia Armstrong. “Except for the times people screenshot the pictures… that’s not cool, they’ve lost my trust.”

Because the app is so convenient, some students use it to replace other ways of communication, such as texting and calling.

“I like it because it’s way easier to just send a quick picture and message rather than texting,” said sophomore Aaron Karpie.

“I’m honestly too lazy to text some people so I use Snapchat to just say ‘hi’ instead of actually attempting to go in an in deep conversation,” said Armstrong.

Snapchat allows users to send captions along with the photo. Captions can be up to about 40 characters long, just long enough to send a short message.

“My friends and I also use it as a means of communication with its caption option,” said Porter. “Though many find it pointless, and quite frankly I do too, it’s an entertaining and funny way to communicate with friends.”

Overall, this app is becoming a big trend across Carlmont students, as it is  bringing communication to a whole new level.