Following allegations that its friendship Solar System feature, which is exclusive to subscribers, is negatively affecting younger users, Snapchat is changing the feature.
Exclusive to Snapchat+ users, the Solar System display presents a planetary visualization of your most frequently communicated with pals on the app.
As you can see, the Solar System shows you the users who are in your orbit around a separate planet whose distance from the sun is equal to yours, depending on involvement. Mercury, the planet nearest to the sun, would thus be a representation of your best friend, for example.
Less than 0.25% of Snap users utilize the function daily, yet the company reports receiving “overwhelmingly positive feedback” about it. However, others claim that the display unintentionally establishes a ranking system among friend groups.
Which may result in unfavorable experiences. For this reason, Snap has recently declared that it will make the Solar System display an opt-in feature rather than showing it to Snapchat+ users automatically.
According to Snap’s explanation:
“We recognize that although being close to someone might make you feel wonderful, it can also make you feel horrible to realize that your friendship with a friend isn’t as deep as you’d like it to be. We’re going to turn the Solar System feature off by default so that Snapchat+ subscribers who want more friendship insights can proactively turn it on, and those who don’t will never have to see it. We’ve heard and understand that the Solar System can make that feeling worse, and we want to avoid that.
The Wall Street Journal piece from last week, which detailed the detrimental consequences the feature is having on certain users and their relationships, prompted the majority of the changes.
According to WSJ:
“The young adults with paid accounts that I spoke with shared that they had witnessed youthful loves fade and friendships break apart because they knew that someone else was more popular on the app. There are rumors that teenagers joined Snapchat+ solely to see how their crush is doing.
Which is most likely an overreaction to a rather basic app function and a little unreasonable. However, we’ve all been adolescents, and we all know that if we could have, we would have most likely checked in on the same thing.
Therefore, it makes sense that Snap degraded the feature by making it opt-in. However, it seems like they should just throw it out completely because, in any case, it’s not that big of a concern.
Like, it only launched a year ago, and it’s not likely to be attracting a sizable number of new Snapchat+ users.
So why not simply discard it?
When I first read today’s update, I really believed Snap was declaring that. However, it’s not; kids will still use it to compare their popularity and social standing in an elementary way.
Which ultimately means Snap will most likely give up on it. Perhaps it is now generating enough new Snapchat+ sign-ups to sustain its existence, but I have a feeling that it will ultimately prove to be more hassle than it is worth.
And that will finally lead to its elimination at some point.
However, it’s now hidden further within the program. Will teenagers cease using it as a result? No, it won’t.