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Aurora Jimenez

Professor Granillo

English 101

22 October 2018

Mobile Apps Taking Over Our Lives

Jenna Wortham wrote an article entitled “How I learned to love snapchat” and to educate

her audience on how people’s phones and apps have become a part of their daily lives. It seems

that too many people are not able to function adequately without their phones. When people

leave their house, they try to make sure that they have their phone on them person, but the

moment that they discover that they are without their beloved cell phone, they tend to go into a

panic mode and an almost audible alarm goes off inside their heads. Many of them prefer to

communicate with one another by cell phone which has become the modern way for two people

to communicate spontaneously due to the complexities of living in a modern society. Speaking

of social media, people have become so attached to it. Many people prefer communicating on

Snapchat to put themselves at ease rather than using Twitter or Instagram, where many people

feel like they are being judged by their peers or others. Social media also attracts people who

may be concerned about their physical attractiveness because they may not consider themselves

to be the best-looking people. Even though, Wortham suggest that Snapchat has helped people

eliminate other social media platforms from their lives, she has overlooked that Snapchat has

taken over people’s lives; Wortham employs an overtly emotional tone provides readers with an

anecdotal experience which glorifies Snapchat as a means of persuading the reader. Wortham’s

usage of the passive aggressive tone leaves readers unaffirmed and ultimately not persuaded.
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Jenna Wortham’s motivation was to show people that snapchat, was not just for “horny”

teens or young adults but instead has become the reverse of what many people had said that it

would be. In the article “How I learned to love snapchat,” by Jenna Wortham, she mentioned

how people would be using Snapchat, in 2012. In Wortham’s article, the press seemed to assume

that it would be primarily used by “horny” teenagers “swapping nudes,” but instead, many

people, in various industries and walks of life, would soon learn how to use Snapchat (Wortham

477). Wortham did not like the idea of Snapchat when it first came out just because she had

other apps that she was utilizing at that time. Wortham stated that “I’ve turned to newer ways to

talk and interact with primarily voice memos” (Wortham 476). She did not like the concept of

texting since she believed that people could not really put human emotions into it. Texting has

changed a lot in the last few years. Some generations do not know that there were no emojis

prior to 2007. It has been my experience that people who use Snapchat also use Bitmoji just

because it is made to look like the user and with that, they can express their feelings, along with

their facial expressions. “If our emoji couldn’t become us, we would become our emoji”

(Wortham 477). However, Snapchat has become much more common now that many people

have created Snapchat accounts for their businesses. In the article “The Snapchat Report,” by

PR Newswire, that “leading brands including BMW, McDonald’s and Victoria’s Secret have

seized the opportunity to sponsor and advertise on Snapchat to reach the much sought-after

millennial consumer,” and these, are but only, a few, fortune 500 companies on board with

Snapchat. There are even small companies that have begun to use Snapchat, too. As social media

becomes more advanced, they are going to see even more advance types of emojis. Another

benefit of being on Snapchat is that a sender can send a random picture with text and the receiver

will understand the message, making it easier to communicate between sender and receiver. The
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more Snapchat expands, the more businesses will want to advertise on it, which, in theory, more

consumers to see their products, which should expand a business’s customer base.

Jenna Wortham is using pathos to relate to her younger audience and at the same time she

is making strides in connecting to her more mature audience. Using emotions, “read” receipts,

which is designed to let you know that someone opened and read your message, are perhaps, at

best letting you know when you’re being ignored” by the receiver. No one likes to be left on

“read” or even “ignore” especially if you are trying to have a relationship with that particular

person (Wortham 476). People even find it rude that they were left on “read” because they put a

lot of thought and emotion into it for the other person to just open it and then maybe not even

read it. The sender may even respond back to the receiver in sometimes futile attempts to get a

reply. Social media technology can help us in many ways, nevertheless, it can also help destroy

social and intimate relationships by documenting that a person has received your text message

but has failed to reply to your message. Snapchat has been more accessible to all generations as

stated, “Texting free a generation from the strictures and inconvenience (and awkwardness) of a

phone call, while allowing people to be more loosely and constantly connected,” but then again,

we become awkward when they see each other in person” (Wortham 475). As people get older

and grow apart they are still able to remain in each other lives and keep up with one another with

“just a few seconds of my favorite people’s face on a larger screen, smiling, or singing, or

showing of their view, before they fade and disappear” even though it just for a few seconds the

person watching their small video feels the same emotions the other person is displaying

(Wortham478). For Wortham, that invoked the emotion of happiness and a bit of sadness because

of she had to see her favorite people through a screen like a lot of people do every day for

various reasons. In the article “ “Snapchat Remakes Itself, Splitting the Social from the Media”
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by Kate Benner, “ separating social from media has allowed us to build the best way to

communicate with friends and the best way to watch great media content, while addressing many

of the problems that plague the internet today,” Mr. Spiegel” this is just another resource to

support her argument about how Snapchat had evolved from other social media apps that can

help them stay bonded to family members and friends, who may be far away. Wortham, tries to

use the read emotions for them to be able to connect with her or understand her arguments by

drawing some relatable emotions from the reader by mentioning how people feel about being left

on read or how it can even be awkward to talk on the phone nowadays. Social media can be

emotionally draining for everyone in today’s modern world.

Furthermore, Wortham has gained even stronger credibility when she wrote for the New

York Times, Bust magazine, Jezebel, the Village Voice, Vogue and Wired (Wortham 474). Yet

someone people would argue with Wortham about her opinion about Snapchat. Wortham uses

ethos to be more relatable to anyone who might see her point of view, as well as, argue her point

of view “Each time I check the app, I’m surprise to see who else in my network has started using

the service.” She still gets quite impressed by the fact that everyone is using Snapchat (Wortham

477). In other words, she provides examples of how Snapchat has impacted her life when it

came to texting with others. “In 2012, I calculated that u sent about 7,000 texts a month” imagen

how much more texting it would have been before she began to use Snapchat (Wortham 476).

Wortham is more creditable because she uses her own research to support her arguments. “Most

of the “snaps” I send and receive are tightly frame, with angles that could be considered

unflattering” (Wortham 477). That is only, but a few examples of Wortham’s own personal

research to make her argument stronger and retable to everyone.

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Nonetheless, Wortham’s passive, aggressive tone, persuades the reader that Snapchat is

the most genuine form of social media and “how most behave on Facebook, Instagram and

Twitter—as if we’re waiting to be plucked from obscurity by a talent agent or model scout”

(Wortham 478). Snapchat allows people to be themselves without having to be someone that

they are not and not having to worry that random people are looking at their pictures. People

having a place they can go to decompress and be themselves, which they may not feel they can

be on other social media apps. “Away from the fave-based economies of mainstream social

media, there’s less pressure to be dolled up, or funny” and snapchat helps people with that by

being one of the first apps to have funny filters (Wortham 478). Wortham uses her passive

aggressive tone for this reason: because she can say things with a passive aggressive tone

without getting in trouble with her readers. Some people will not notice that Wortham uses her

passive aggressive tone for everyone to listen to her about Snapchat being more than just a

gateway from all the negativity of Facebook, Instagram, and even Twitter.

In addition, Wortham’s strong points incorporated pathos, ethos and aggressive tone.

Here, Wortham uses ethos to make her more credible by using her own experience, like sending

snaps, that maybe be from positions utilizing angles that might make you look different than

one’s self. Wortham, attempts to utilize emotion, to relate to the reader, by using the emotion of

disappointment, when they are left on “read” either by text message, or, through an app.

Wortham shares that experience, because most people go through similar occurrence, in their

lives. There is people who got out of their way to put all their feelings on a text for them to be

just left on read. Wortham also tried to use passive aggressive tone either on purpose or without

realizing it, especially when she mentioned that people act differently on social media. Wortham

could had been more persuadable if she had provided more information or even used logos to
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give more background information about Snapchat and other apps she mentioned in her article.

Overall, Wortham did give insight about Snapchat and how other people may see it or think

about it. Snapchat has become a very usefully tool to be able to express one’s opinion and how

to be original and self without being judged by others. Wortham also thought that it would only

be used by teens and young adults, but she had never thought that she would be one of the many

professional people to use Snapchat. Once Wortham learned more about it she saw it as a better

way to get connected with friends and colleagues because it was easy to use, easy to understand,

and the condensed wording, sold her on the benefits of Snapchat.

Snapchat has become a welcomed gateway from the times of Twitter and Instagram.

Jenna Wortham used some of the rhetorical devices like pathos, ethos and a passive aggressive

tone to persuade her reader audience to reevaluate how they think about Snapchat. Snapchat was

created for people to get connected in a faster way but instead made people less social. Just like

everything, Snapchat has the elements of being good and/or bad, but Wortham provided few

examples of that. Nobody feels singled out of Snapchat. It is quite the opposite. At first it was

just for college students and maybe people in a certain professional field. Later, Snapchat was

open for everyone to join and that was the propeller for full steam ahead. Snapchat brought

concern to some people on how teens would use it and how safe it could be for them.

The future of Snapchat is uncertain, since people still do not know if it will keep expanding or it

will just stay as it is right now or even how much longer it will still be used by the public. Also,

people will hurry up and wait to see if another social media app will come along and take the

crown from Snapchat and replace its’ thunder.

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Works Cited

Wortham, Jenna. How I learn to love Snapchat (2016) (They Say, I Say). 4th ed., Cathy

Birkenstein 2017(pp. 251-295). W.W NORTON New York. London

Author Last, First. Title of Source. ProQuest 1, Other contributors, Version, Number,

Publisher, Publication date, location. PR Newswire, New York [New York]21 Nov 2016.

Benner, Katie Title of Source. ProQuest, Other contributors, Version, Number, The New York

times , Publication date, location. “Snapchat Remakes Itself, Splitting the Social from the

Media” Page B6 of the New York edition, Nov. 29, 2017