Chapter 27 Further Reading: Snapchat, Streaks, and Ephemerality

Foundational Research

1. Boyd, D. (2014). It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. Yale University Press. Boyd's landmark ethnographic study of how teenagers actually use social media, based on years of fieldwork and interviews with young people across the United States. Essential background for understanding the social contexts in which Snapchat's features operate. Boyd's analysis of the distinction between the "Facebook self" and more authentic self-expression is directly relevant to Snapchat's founding premise.

2. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kahneman's accessible synthesis of decades of behavioral economics research, including the prospect theory and loss aversion concepts central to understanding streak mechanics. Chapters on the endowment effect, loss framing, and the psychology of gains and losses provide theoretical grounding for the behavioral analysis in this chapter.

3. Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books. Twenge's analysis of generational trends in adolescent mental health, arguing that smartphone-based social media adoption is a primary driver of the mental health decline that began around 2012. Contentious but influential, with substantial empirical documentation of population-level trends.

4. Steinberg, L. (2014). Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Steinberg synthesizes contemporary neuroscience and developmental psychology research on adolescence, with particular attention to the dopaminergic reward systems, peer sensitivity, and prefrontal cortex development that underpin teenagers' distinctive vulnerability to social media engagement mechanics.

Academic Research on Snapchat Specifically

5. Piwek, L., & Joinson, A. (2016). "What Do They Snapchat About? Patterns of Use in Time-Limited Instant Messaging Service." Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 358–367. One of the first systematic academic studies of Snapchat use patterns, documenting who uses Snapchat, how, and for what purposes. Foundational empirical work that established the baseline for subsequent research.

6. Bayer, J. B., Ellison, N. B., Schoenebeck, S. Y., & Falk, E. B. (2016). "Sharing the Small Moments: Ephemeral Social Interaction on Snapchat." Information, Communication & Society, 19(7), 956–977. Examines how Snapchat's ephemeral format shapes the character of social interaction, finding that Snapchat use was associated with more intimate, less performative communication than persistent social media platforms. The empirical basis for claims about Snapchat's authenticity advantage.

7. Vaterlaus, J. M., Barnett, K., Roche, C., & Young, J. A. (2016). "'Snapchat Is More Personal': An Exploratory Study on Snapchat Behaviors and Young Adult Interpersonal Relationships." Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 594–601. Qualitative study of how young adults describe their Snapchat use, with particular attention to relationship maintenance and the perceived intimacy of ephemeral communication.

8. Burchell, K., Jagers, P., & Ling, R. (2019). "The Social Obligation of Snapchat Streaks: Young People's Networked Practices of Reciprocity." Mobile Media & Communication, 7(3), 412–428. Detailed qualitative analysis of streak culture, including the social obligation mechanics, status encoding in streak lengths, and the "streak sitter" phenomenon. The primary academic source for the quantitative estimates of streak anxiety prevalence cited in this chapter.

9. Williams, K. D. (2007). "Ostracism." Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425–452. Williams' comprehensive review of two decades of research on the psychological effects of social exclusion. Essential theoretical grounding for understanding why Snap Map's exclusion visualization produces such intense emotional responses.

10. Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). "Motivational, Emotional, and Behavioral Correlates of Fear of Missing Out." Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848. The foundational academic treatment of FOMO as a psychological construct, establishing its measurement, correlates, and relationship to social media use and wellbeing. Essential for understanding the mechanism by which Snap Map produces anxiety.

11. Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). "Social Comparison, Social Media, and Self-Evaluation." Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206–222. Experimental study of how social comparison on social media affects self-evaluation, with implications for understanding the status dynamics of Snapchat scores and streak lengths.

Adolescent Development Context

12. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. Norton. Erikson's foundational account of adolescent identity development, including the concept of the psychosocial moratorium that provides the developmental context for understanding Snapchat's role in identity formation and exploration.

13. Marcia, J. E. (1966). "Development and Validation of Ego-Identity Status." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3(5), 551–558. The original empirical operationalization of Erikson's identity concepts, establishing the four-status model (diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, achievement) used in this chapter to analyze Snapchat's effects on identity development.

14. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2011). "Online Communication Among Adolescents: An Integrated Model of Its Attraction, Opportunities, and Risks." Journal of Adolescent Health, 48(2), 121–127. Comprehensive theoretical model of adolescent online communication, integrating research on identity, peer relationships, and wellbeing. Essential framework for understanding how social media features interact with developmental processes.

Platform Business and Design Context

15. Galloway, S. (2017). The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Portfolio/Penguin. Business analysis of dominant platform companies that provides context for understanding Snap's financial pressures and strategic position relative to larger competitors. Particularly relevant to the discussion of Instagram's decision to copy Snapchat Stories.

16. Spiegel, E. (2013, May 9). "2012 USC Commencement Address." (Transcript available online). Spiegel's articulation of Snapchat's founding philosophy in his own words, including the vision of ephemerality as a response to the permanent record problem. Primary source for understanding the gap between founding intent and design reality.

17. Snap Inc. (Various years). Annual Reports and Investor Letters. Snap's investor communications provide insight into how the company articulates its product philosophy, user wellbeing commitments, and business strategy to shareholders. The gap between the language of user wellbeing and the disclosure of engagement metrics is instructive.

Broader Technology Ethics Context

18. Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. Penguin Press. Turkle's examination of how digital communication has affected the capacity for genuine human connection, with extensive discussion of how ephemeral communication platforms shape relationship expectations and communication patterns.

19. Haidt, J., & Allen, N. E. (2020). "Scrutinizing the Effects of Digital Technology on Mental Health." Nature, 578(7794), 226–227. A review of the methodological debates about causal inference in research on social media and mental health, distinguishing what is well-established from what remains contested and identifying the most important directions for future research.