California-based Survata asked more than 5,000 people the question on the minds of so many these days: "Are you just using Snapchat to sext?"
First released by Stanford students in September 2011, Snapchat is a photo messaging app that allows users to take photos, record video, embellish said photos with text and drawings, and share them with friends.
One unique aspect of the Snapchat system is the built-in ephemerality of all shared photos. After ten seconds, the photo is deleted from the recipient's device as well as from Snapchat's own servers.
Snapchat's seeming to be custom-designed for "sexting" (the sharing of texts, photos, or videos with prurient intent) as well as the company's own visual promo for the service that clearly shows two scantily dressed (if at all) young women, lead many to believe that - yes - Snapchat is for flirtation purposes only.
What Survata found in its independent study may shock.
Turns out the myth, for now at least, is just that.
"We interviewed 5,475 U.S. respondents aged 18 to 29 between January 19 and February 1, 2013," said Survata.
"From that pool, we found 715 self-reported Snapchat users, and 13.1% of them admitted to sexting. As a baseline for comparison, we interviewed a completely separate group of 453 self-reported text messaging users. 26.5% of text messaging users admitted to sexting, in line with prior studies."
The studies to which Survata referred were those reported by CBS News in July 2012. 28 percent of all high school students engage in some form of sexting, as determined by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston's inquiries into 1000 high school students.
Survata continued their investigation to discover that gender does affect sexting, with men being significantly more likely to sext than women and twice as likely as their feminine counterparts to sext on Snapchat.
Those in Survata's interviews between the ages of 23 and 29 claimed they were also nearly twice as likely as their 18- to 22-year-old alternates to employ Snapchat as a sexting tool.
With Survata's having determined that Snapchat is not used for sexting - at least as much as people may think - it asked the next best question: "What do you use it for, then?"
Answers ranged from "send funny pictures to my friends" to "make silly faces for my friends" to "send jokes to my friends."
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