Communication Conflicts
Students discuss whether they use social media or SMS
Student texts in hall.
Throughout the past decade, social media has been both a tool and a detriment to many impressianable teenagers.
Senior Lauren Hughes has had social media since sixth grade, when she got her first cell phone.
“Everyone had social media so I got [social media],” Hughes said.
In addition to features like posting photos and sharing memes, many students, like senior Caroline Zhang, use social media as a substitute for texting.
“I like dm-ing because I can text people while I’m on the computer, for example, Discord,” Zhang said.
Discord is one of the primary ways for people in the online gaming community to communicate with each other. It is most known for being able to put people in large chat servers that can help organize an entire community.
In a poll with 70 students at Troy High, 58 percent of students use regular short message service (SMS) text messages to communicate with their friends and family. SMS uses phone data instead of WiFi to send and receive messages.
From the poll, it’s evident that most students still prefer a regular texting experience over direct messaging.
“My friend’s answer their texts faster than their DMs,” Hughes said.
Sophomore Neha Aigalikar agrees with Hughes.
“I prefer texting because it’s easier to communicate,” Aigalikar said. “When I go on DM’s I get distracted by Snapchat or Instagram, so when I’m doing my homework and I wanna text my friends, then I just use regular iMessages.”
33 percent of students prefer Snapchat to texting via SMS services. Snapchat has a unique feature that makes texts and photos disappear after being viewed by the other person. While the messages can disappear, people can choose to keep the message in chat by tapping on, or “saving,” it.
Aigalikar uses all forms of social media but prefers Instagram.
“I’ve had social media since the beginning of 8th grade,” Aigalikar said. “I prefer Instagram because I like to see content from my favorite influencers and I like to catch up with my family overseas.”
It’s clear that social media messaging services are only growing. As more of the student population uses them, peer pressure will drive this new culture into fruition.
“Everyone else was on it and I just wanted to talk to my friends,” Zhang said.
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Chariot he is a part of book club, theater and consistently volunteers at the school library. AJ likes being involved in many issues online that impact him in different ventures in his life. Some fun facts about AJ include that he hasn’t gotten less than a B+ on an English essay since 6th grade and he also got to meet the author of “Dangerous Art of Blending In” Angelo Surmelis. AJ in extremely excited to work for The Chariot this year and wishes to change the way students look at the school using the newspaper as his primary device.