The One Snapchat Feature that is Frustratingly Clever

Someone is typing? Thanks for letting me know.

Joe McCormick
3 min readAug 17, 2021
Image: Author.

I don’t like Snapchat.

The only reason why I have it installed on my phone in the first place is because my fellow university friends insist it’s the best way of communicating with each other. But, if our group chats were held on another platform, you bet the photo-sharing app would be deleted from my phone as soon as possible.

In my experience, everything I can do on Snapchat can be done easily on another form of social media. Furthermore, it is tedious to be constantly saving messages in order for them not to be automatically deleted after 24-hours. After five years of use, I still struggle to see the point of the platform.

However, there is one feature on Snapchat that sets it apart from their competition; a feature that is easily overlooked, but is sneakily executed to encourage you to spend time you never intended to spend on their app.

The Typing Indicator

Out of all the messaging apps I use (including Facebook Messenger, Instagram, iMessage and WhatsApp), Snapchat is the only platform that sends two notifications for every message you receive. Whenever one of your contacts starts typing, you will be immediately alerted with the…

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Joe McCormick
Joe McCormick

Written by Joe McCormick

Joe McCormick is a 21-year old journalist, writer, podcast host, radio show host and content creator that writes about Formula 1 and his other interests.

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