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Sophia Ko

Professor Kate

RCL 137

11/25/18

Means of Communication: An Unconscious Influence

When people meet each other for the first time, they may shake hands or greet each other

with a “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.” Next, they may carry out a small, meaningless or

meaningful conversation, and when they depart they will exchange goodbyes, then each carry on

with their own separate lives. These two people may never contact each other again, but in many

cases this interaction was the first stepping stone in the foundation for a future developing

relationship. Interpersonal interactions are a simple form of communication, yet their intimacy

paves the way for all future relationships. Unlike the 20th century, when there was little access to

devices like cell phones or computers, today, interpersonal communication is no longer limited

to interpersonal communication. Communication is now carried out through cell phones,

computers, and also through other mediums like the mail service. Whether you have access to a

pen and paper, an electronic device, or maybe both, it is up to your discretion on how you choose

to maintain the interpersonal relationships that you have formed throughout your lifetime. Since

communication plays a vital role in everyday lives for all humans, it is to no surprise that private

entities like Snapchat, have capitalized on the opportunity to provide a communication platform

that facilitates communication through cell phones. Snapchat allows for people to not only send

pictures and videos to each other, but also track, message, call, and facetime each other. Similar

to Snapchat, Pen-Pals can also communicate with each other without being face to face, and
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instead by sending letters through the Postal Service. While Snapchat is a much more common

method for communication in current society, the origins of Snapchat and Pen-Pals both

influence aspects like terminology, location features, and content of communication that mold

the way in which people view the magnitude of their relationships.

Before Snapchat became a medium for communication in its many varying forms, it was

advertised as a very simple app, a sexting app. It was launched in 2010 by three Stanford

undergraduates who envisioned the app as a platform for couples to exchange their own personal

images (Nusca). Originally named “Picaboo,” but later renamed for copyright purposes, it was of

instant appeal to teenagers who were trying to free away from their parents infiltration of

Facebook, the dominant social media platform at the time (Nusca). In the app store, Picaboo was

labeled as being for children over 12 only, alongside a ​warning of “mild sexual content or

nudity” within the app’s description (Bilton). Snapchat founders further marketed their app

through their notorious press release in 2011:

Toss out those old, last-season photo messaging apps because now Picaboo let’s you and

your girlfriends send photos for peeks and not keeps! Show off your sexy new hairstyle

or let him choose that hot new outfit, without the hassle and stress of knowing that these

images will be saved into your camera gallery forever. Who actually wants every photo

of themselves to last forever in the record books? Umm, not us? (Nusca)

In the two years of time following this statement, Snapchat reached a milestone of 1 million

users (Nusca). Naturally Snapchat’s attention led to criticism from big time media outlets like

New York Times, who questioned the liability of Snapchat’s privacy policy because while the

app ​“ tries to quickly erase photos from its servers, it ‘cannot guarantee that the message data
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will be deleted in every case'” (Bilton). Privacy concerns like these were the driving force for the

quick reimaging of the app through the addition of features like video content, chatting, face

filters, discover (real time news outlets), and twenty four hour “stories,” or posts viewable to all

contacts that disappeared after 24 hours. Snapchat’s evolution from 2010 to today is what allows

for anyone to socialize through the app, even though most are unaware of the app’s original

purpose for sexting.

Unlike the evolving usage of Snapchat since its creation just 8 years ago, the

communication medium of Pen-Pals has held a constant role since its’ creation in the 1930s.

Pen-Pals were first proposed b​y school teachers as a way for students to communicate and form

connections with other students from around the world (“Pen Pals”). In some cases, it involves

the learning of another language, but the majority of the time Pen-Pals are students who speak

the same language but have never met prior to their written commitment. The only set rule for

Pen-Pals is to continuously exchange written letters back and forth for as long as desired. The

Oxford Dictionary describes a pen pal as “a person with whom one becomes friendly by

exchanging letters, especially someone in a foreign country whom one has never met”

(“Discover the Story… ”). Moreover, a pen pal is not limited to a friend, a stranger, or a

foreigner, but any pairing of two people who desire to continually exchange letters for an

extended amount of time. This method of communication that is more freely interpreted than

Snapchat, also influences the way people view relationships.

Pen-Pals and Snapchatters are influenced by the language embedded within each form of

communication. In the name itself, “​pals,​” indicates that the relationships between Pen-Pals can

vary from just acquaintances, to very close intimate friends. In one relation, a women from
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London describes her connection with her Californian pen-pal: ​"It's a different type of friendship

to seeing each other every day, but it still feels just as real" (Bateman). Therefore by using the

term “Pal,” participants can decide the magnitude of their relationships based upon other factors.

On the other hand, through the lens of Snapchat, ​the label “best friend,” is earned following very

specific protocol. The snapchatter must send pictures to their partner more often than they do to

anyone else, and this action must be reciprocated for both parties to earn the friendship. This

feature is parallel with ​the app’s motto shift from warnings about nudity and sexting, to instead

“your best friends at your fingertips,” because snapchat aggressively forces the term best friend

upon users (“What is Snapchat”). Snapchat also uses other terms like “streak” and “needs love”

to encourage users to send mass snapchats to specific people (“What is Snapchat”). All this

terminology between Snapchat and PenPals highlight how the method in which one chooses to

communicate can impact how they name their relationships.

Another component to mediums of communication that influence users is location.

Following Snapchat’s evolution into a more appropriate app, they added a new feature called

“Snapmaps.” Snapmaps allows for users to track others who choose to have their location shared

with all their contacts. This feature leads to the ideology that each partner should know where

each other is 24/7, yet when it comes to the actual communication component, 35% of

Snapchatters still use the app because all their pictures and chat content disappears (Smith). In

contrast, Pen-Pals never quite know where the other partner is until they recieve a letter. Each

partner has a built trust in their relation, that is unreliant on tracking one another. One teacher’s

experience reveals the lighthearted excitement accompanying Pen-Pal communication as her

students ​shouted, "Mrs. Mims, you know what my pen pal said?" (Mims). This excitement
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juxtaposes the feeling of stress that often overcomes snapchatters who constantly track each

other to know where and what their friends are doing at all times.​ The knowledge of a partner’s

location can cause distrust between overly invested Snapchatters, while the lack of knowledge of

this aspect creates a stronger foundation for Pen-Pal relationships.

The content of each interpersonal message also plays a significant role in how people

view their relationships. Snapchat emphasizes facility, providing a small text box atop of images

to allow for short captions. One critique of the evolving social norms described the experience of

her friend Matt, ​who admitted Snapchat is ​“a way of communicating without actually having to

have a conversation”​ because it allows for users to communicate on “autopilot” (Sanfilippo).

These “best friends” on snapchat, can hypothetically communicate every day, yet go ​years

without sending actual words to one another. Unlike this process, Pen-Pals can only

communicate through written letters, which forces participants to express themselves in a more

thought provoking form. Since mail​ within the United States takes an average of three to sixteen

days to receive, and an even longer amount of time for international pals, ​Pen-Pals “​always have

lots to talk about" (Bateman; “Mail”). When compared with the perceptions of Pen-Pals, the lack

of content requirement for Snapchatters can lead to a much wider range of what they consider to

be best friend material.

Like all gradual change, Snapchatters may not have noticed how the added features in the

app can influence decisions and thoughts accompany their everyday best friends. This is true for

Pen-Pals too, as their actions through this form of communication have helped create a higher

standard for their definition of a true friend. Moreover, beginning with the origins of both these
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mediums, they encourage specific behavior and opinions within interpersonal relationships

through aspects of terminology, location and content of the actual messages being sent.

All in all, it takes two people to form a relationship, and whether these two people decide

to become Pen-Pals, or Snapchat “Best Friends,” the effort that they put into the relationship will

determine the magnitude of the relationship that is formed. The introduction of many different

forms of communication plays a larger role than just in the forming of relationships, as it leads to

greater variation in a once definitive term like best friend. Today, we can examine different

forms of communication to understand that the term best friend is now ambiguous, but

tomorrow, it is impossible to predict what other artifacts will alter what once used to be common

perceptions in the world.

Works Cited
Bateman, Jessica. “Dear Pen Pal: How Writing Letters to Strangers Is Making a Comeback.” ​The
Guardian,​ Guardian News and Media, 18 June 2014,
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/18/dear-pen-pal-writing-letters-to-strangers.
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Bilton, Nick. “Disruptions: Indiscreet Photos, Glimpsed Then Gone.” ​The New York Times,​ The
New York Times, 6 May 2012,
bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/disruptions-indiscreet-photos-glimpsed-then-gone.
“Mail & Shipping Services.” ​Mail & Shipping Services | USPS​, 2018,
www.usps.com/ship/mail-shipping-services.htm.
“Discover the Story of English More than 600,000 Words, over a Thousand Years.” ​Home :
Oxford English Dictionary,​ www.oed.com/.
Mims, Lisa. “Pen-Pals in the 21st Century.” ​Edutopia,​ George Lucas Educational Foundation,
2013, www.edutopia.org/blog/Pen-Pals-in-21st-century-lisa-mims.
Nusca, Andrew. “Snapchat: An Abridged History.” ​Fortune,​ Time Inc, 2017,
fortune.com/2017/02/04/Snapchat-abridged-history/.
“Pen Pal.” ​Wikipedia​, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Oct. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_pal.
Sanfilippo, Jen. “Snapping Through Life: How Snapchat Changes Communication.” ​Form of
Life​, Medium, 9 June 2016,
medium.com/forms-of-life/snapping-through-life-how-Snapchat-changes-communication-bf9d5
bd44466.
Smith, Craig. “145 Amazing Snapchat Statistics.” ​DMR,​ DMR, 23 Oct. 2018,
expandedramblings.com/index.php/Snapchat-statistics/.
Vaynerchuk, Gary. “The Snap Generation: A Guide to Snapchat's History.”
GaryVaynerchuk.com​, 2015,
www.garyvaynerchuk.com/the-snap-generation-a-guide-to-Snapchats-history/.
“What Is Snapchat?” ​What Is Snapchat?,​ whatis.Snapchat.com/.