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Comment by weinzierl | Hacker News Reader

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weinzierl

Oh, I agree so much, but I am not sure about your examples either:

Snapchat - does it even exist anymore? It had its time, but personally I don't know anyone still there.

Same with Facebook Messenger, which has completely been replaced by WhatsApp in my (non-nerd) circles.

I thought about including TikTok but it would be more in the

- YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, PeerTube

category. To me, these are borderline social media and more akin to television - pure consumption, heavily discouraged participation. Just look at the comments on any of these for a proof.

I'd give you Instagram, it seems immensely popular and intensively used as a communication platform.

If we disregard our own bubbles and go strictly by popularity we should have considered WeChat and Douyin too, I guess.

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Snapchat - does it even exist anymore?

It's the primary mode of group communication for my teenage daughter and everybody in her social circles. Second place is probably Discord, but that is heavily skewer towards people she knows via gaming.

That is interesting. I have a teenage daughter too and never heard Snapchat mentioned. Some of here friends are on TikTok though, but we don't allow it. Communication is mostly iMessage, old fashioned phone calls and the MS Teams provided by her school.

I get the sense that Snapchat is mostly the current 18-27 crowd, but not necessarily the 13-18 crowd. Would be curious to hear the experiences of other parents in this regard.

Mine is in the younger category, Snapchat is their main communication tool, even for calls. She reaches her screentime limit on it very quickly.

I checked back, and yes, you are right Snapchat and Instagram are indeed popular with her friends.

Great point about disregarding our own bubbles. Here's a good example re:Snapchat. Slightly more than 5% of the world is on Snapchat daily. That number has been going up, almost without fail, quarter over quarter for 12 years.

I think to label YT, TikTok etc as pure consumption is not accurate entirely. I get your point, but on the ways they specifically differ from television is the ability to make reaction/response or whatever else videos. So for some at least it’s not pure consumption (even though it is for many users)

I do remember YT video responses did exist, but I haven't seen any in a long time. Google found this [0] 15 years old video explaining how to do it. According to the comment section it is historical. Video replies no longer exist.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=93Q5ChkkCnc

> Snapchat - does it even exist anymore?

I can't say overall, but my children and their friends use snap as their first line of communication, with iMessage a close second.

The social media landscape vastly differs from country to country. WhatsApp is basically not a thing in the US outside of immigrant/expat circles.

None of the other ones that you listed are popular in the US either with the exception of Twitter, Zoom and Slack (and the latter two aren't social media platforms).

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