Snap Map

Snap Map is a feature of the mobile application Snapchat. It allows a user to share their location with their friends on the app, as well as view the location of their friends who choose to share it. The location of the user and their friends are displayed on an interface similar to that of Google Maps, and allows the user to message or send a ‘snap’ to their friends directly from the map’s interface. The user can choose whether their friends can see their location, as well as select which friends are allowed to see their location.

Snap Map contains several features, such as Bitmoji, which are avatars that are intended to emulate the user’s physical appearance, heat zones, which show areas of high activity on Snapchat, and many others. As of January 2022, over 250 million Snapchat users use Snap Map every month.

There have been ethical concerns about Snap Map in regard to user privacy and mental health, especially among the younger demographic. As of October 2021, 41.4 percent of Snapchat’s users were between the ages of 13 and 20. These concerns arise from the fact that it is very easy to pinpoint a user’s location on Snap Map, which could put the user at risk. Also, the user can easily see which of their friends are together at a given time, which can lead to feelings of exclusion and have a negative impact on the user's mental health.

History

Snapchat acquired Zenly in May 2017, which is an app that allows friends to track each others’ locations. Zenly uses map data from Mapbox, OpenStreetMap, and DigitalGlobe to display its maps.

Snap Map was launched in June 2017, powered by Zenly’s technology. Upon initial release, it allowed users to see the locations of their friends, to toggle whether others could see their locations, and to view public ‘snaps’ posted by users around the world. In May 2018, a feature called “Map Explore” was introduced, which allowed the user to see updates about their friends’ whereabouts and travel, and to see featured stories of breaking news events happening around the world. The “My Places” feature was released in July 2021, which shows the user popular places near them, and also allows them to save their favorite places. In November 2021, Snap Map added two “Layers” to its interface: Memories, which shows the users the locations of the “snaps” that they have saved in their Snap Memories; and Explore, which displays public posts from events going on at the moment anywhere in the world.

Location Settings

It is completely optional for a user to share their location with their friends on Snap Map. Even if a user opts to not share their location, they can still see the location of their friends who choose to share their location with them.

There are 4 options that a user can choose from in regard to sharing their location on Snap Map:

• Ghost Mode: This option allows the user to hide their location from every user on their friends list. In other words, nobody can see their location. When the user toggles Ghost Mode on, they have the option to be in this mode for 3 hours, 24 hours, or Until Turned Off. If the last option is chosen, nobody will be able to see the user’s location until they choose to turn off Ghost Mode. When Ghost Mode is enabled, the user can still see their own Bitmoji on their map, but it is holding up a blue sign with a ghost icon, similar to that of Snapchat’s logo.

• My Friends: If the user chooses this option, then everyone on their friends list can see their location. Only people who the user has added as a friend can see their location. If someone else has added them as a friend, but the user has not added them back, then that person still cannot see the user’s location.

• My Friends, Except…: This option allows the user to select people from their friends list and prevent them from viewing their location. The only people who can see the user’s location are those who are not selected under this option. This option is used for when the user does not want certain people on their friends list to view their location. The user can change which friends cannot see their location at any time.

• Only These Friends: The user chooses which of their friends can see their location. People on the user’s friends list who are not chosen under this option cannot see the user’s location. This option is suited for when the user wants to limit who can see their location to a select few friends. The user can change who can see their location at any time.

A user’s location on the Snap Map only updates when they have the app open, and they disappear from the map if they do not open the app after a certain amount of time.

A user can select someone from their friends list and request their location if they are not already sharing it. However, the user is able to go into their settings and turn off the ability for their friends to request their location. The user can also share their location to their friends directly via Snapchat’s “Chat” feature.

Features

Snap Map has various features available to the user. Since it was introduced, Snapchat has continuously been adding new features to Snap Map to enhance the user experience.

Bitmoji

On the Snap Map interface, the user’s location is marked by a Bitmoji, which is an avatar that the user can customize to look like them. In order to customize the Bitmoji, the user must download the Bitmoji app to do it, as the Snapchat app does not have that functionality. The user links their Snapchat account to the Bitmoji app, where they can customize their physical features (such as hair, eyes, nose shape, etc.), as well as their clothing.

Timestamps

Directly under a user’s Bitmoji on the map, their name is displayed, along with a relative timestamp. The timestamp indicates the amount of time that has passed since the user last had Snapchat open. Their location on the map reflects where the user was at the time indicated by the timestamp. Therefore, a user can infer when was the last time someone else had the app open, if that person is showing their location. However, a user will disappear from the map altogether after several hours have passed without any activity on the Snapchat app.

Actionmoji

Usually, a user’s Bitmoji on the map is shown to just be standing up, not doing anything. However, Snapchat can detect the type of location where a user is, as well as when the user may be traveling, and change their Bitmoji to reflect their current activity that has been detected. For example, if the user is in a moving car on the highway, the Bitmoji is depicted to be inside a moving car. If the user is at a school, their Bitmoji might be shown to be sitting at a desk, with the appearance that they are studying. Snapchat can also detect if the user is using their headphones with their phone, and then put headphones on their Bitmoji and make it look like they are listening to music. When a user’s Bitmoji is depicted to be doing a certain activity on the map, it is called an Actionmoji.

Although an Actionmoji can be automatically updated through Snapchat’s activity detection, a user can also update their Bitmoji on the map to be an Actionmoji of their choosing. If the user opens Snap Map and selects the “My Bitmoji” option, they can choose one from many different Actionmojis to mark their location on the map. The Actionmoji they select will stay on the map for 4 hours, or until the user manually changes it again.

Ethical Concerns

Since the launch of Snap Map, there have been multiple ethical concerns expressed about the Snapchat feature. There have been concerns about user privacy, since their location is being shared with other users, as well as concerns about the user’s mental health. There’s also concerns about people potentially being able to use Snap Map for serious crimes such as stalking and terrorism. Issues have also come up with the underlying technology of Snap Map getting hacked.

User Privacy

A major ethical concern that has come up with Snap Map is the fact that a user’s location is so easily shared with others on the app, especially considering Snapchat’s young user base. If a user zooms in close enough on the map, there is enough detail to figure out which building or house someone is in. In other words, Snap Map makes it very easy to find the address of where someone is located, which can put the user at risk if it is seen by the wrong person.