The Facebook app designed for teens called Lifestage is now available on Android. Lifestage first came out as an iOS app a couple of months ago.
LifeStage was first released in August. The app is based on Facebook's first model created 12 years ago and was designed to rival Snapchat.
Like Snapchat, Lifestage is video-centric. It encourages the user to take numerous videos
While there are many similarities between LifeStage and Snapchat, their main difference is that the former caters only to high school students. Business Insider mentions that the app blocks people older than 21 from joining a school.
In order to use LifeStage, the user needs to join a school. By doing so, the user can view videos from classmates. It does not, however, allow users to message each other directly. Once a school reaches 20 users, the members can see the profiles of their schoolmates and those from neighboring schools.
The privacy controls are easier to understand and use. A user can simply perform a swipe to report another erring user. The privacy control also allows one to remove another user.
Lifestage was created by 19-year old teenager Michael Sayman who has been working for Facebook since graduating from high school two years ago.
Sayman acknowledged that "LifeStage looks back at the days of Facebook from 2004". He goes on saying that the app "explores what can be done if we went back and turned the crank all the way forward to 2016 with video-first."
Sayman also said that the app is designed for teens to "show others who they are and to find out more about the people in their school community." He also mentioned that the app is a great opportunity to get to know other users from the same school.
According to an article by Tech Crunch, Facebook has made a number of attempts to encourage teenagers to use their platform more. Snapchat remains the most popular networking site among teenagers.
