I have had a number of my peers tell me that either their parents don’t allow them to have Snapchat, or that they were not allowed to use Snapchat in the past.

It’s evident that parents seem to think that Snapchat is an evil place where teenagers send codes through slang and inappropriate pictures. However, that is far from the case.

Personally, I use the app to communicate with my friends in a fun, playful way. The functions of the app allow me to keep a really cool, modern photo album on my phone. Not to mention that it’s a great way for friends that I don’t see very often to keep up with my daily life.

It’s also great for editing photos by adding filters, patterns, and text. For me and many other teens, these are the main functions of Snapchat.

When asked what he primarily uses Snapchat for, senior Anthony Martinez said, “to talk to my friends.”

Sure, there is a possibility that an app user could use the ‘disappearing’ pictures feature to send inappropriate pictures, but I don’t think it’s fair that Snapchat gets such a bad reputation for the very minimal amount of users who use it for that purpose.

If you think about it, pretty much any app could be used in a bad way. Both Instagram and Twitter have direct messaging features as well, but they don’t seem to be correlated with sending inappropriate messages nearly as much as Snapchat.

The biggest issue with this bad reputation is that parents blame an application rather than their child for their bad actions. If a teenager really wants to send inappropriate messages to someone, they will find a way to do it whether they have Snapchat or not.

I believe that a parent not allowing their child to have an app because they’re afraid that they will not be responsible with it, is the worst way to promote maturity. You have to give kids the chance to be responsible with the app in the first place.

“I have positive ideas about [Snapchat] because that’s the main way I communicate with my friends,” said junior Sierra Cameron, explaining that the positives definitely outweigh any negatives in her opinion.