By JESSICA VAILS
Student Reporter
Social media today is not what it was yesterday, and it will not be the same tomorrow as it is today. There is always something new trending daily, and new accounts being made daily.
For the most part, our generation started their social media journey with a Myspace account during our awkward middle school era. We then moved to Facebook. Many still use their Facebook account, and they are somewhat active members.
There are a few real questions though. Why do we not use Facebook as much anymore, and what is the newest, hottest apps our generation is using?
There are millions of apps available for downloading right at our fingertips, but in a survey of random people, the top app used by our generation currently here at Northwestern is Instagram. Instagram was created in 2010 as a photo-sharing app and has skyrocketed in downloads.
Survey shows that Facebook is still popular for our generation. It really is the younger generation that will probably kill Facebook. Facebook has trended as one of our top apps since 2004. Where it will go next is simply a mystery to us all.
Twitter is a popular trending app to some but is not as popular for the Northwestern students. One student, Emily Ceniceros, says “Twitter and Candy Crush got boring.”She says she now uses a weather app more than both of them.
Other apps that seem so popular are not as popular as we believe. No students reported that in their top five apps they used Snapchat. Snapchat was created in 2011 and is still a top app to download. Northwestern student Ty Chris Beasley is a “snapchatter” ; he loves snap chat and says, “It makes communication with people a bit more interesting.”
Another app important to the Northwestern campus is Yik Yak. Nick Perkins, says “I used Yik Yak for about two week and it got boring.” Another student who used Yik Yak, Devin Thornburg, says he uses it “just for my own entertainment I don’t enjoy it as much. It used to be funny stuff now it has completely turned into negative post about people or the school.” Ceniceros says, “I liked it, but then I realized it was a mean app and I didn’t like that”
Other apps that our generation seems to like are IHeart radio, IFunny, and various weather apps.
The newest and latest app that people in our survey downloaded was Trivia Crack. This app was created in 2013 and is now hitting the top app charts rapidly. Ceniceros says, “I enjoy the app because it’s fun and entertaining” and “I learn from it. Some of the questions I don’t know, and after I guess whether it be right or wrong I remember it.”