Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out

Re:Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people ... by Alex3917 on Thursday February 07, 2013 @01:10PM (#5183586)

The methodology of the survey is somewhat weak. Snapchat has only been popular for about a year, whereas sexting has been common for 5+ years now. Not only does this mean that users have had a much longer time to sext via SMS than snapchat, but because it's a self-reported survey it's even worse; users are much more likely to admit to something the longer ago it happened in the past, which skews the data even further. It would have been much better to ask users whether they had sexted within the past six months or whatever.

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Re:Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people ... by awenger on Thursday February 07, 2013 @01:31PM (#5183696)

Survata co-founder here.

Good point. We had the same thought and did consider running a survey variant with the fixed 6 mo time frame. And we may just give it a try to see how the results are affected.

Even with the current wording, I find the SMS comparison useful. It demonstrates that people are willing to admit to sexting in the anonymous Survata survey format. I like your hypothesis about greater willingness to admit to "bad behavior" in the distant past than in the recent past. My intuition is that anonymity weakens that effect, but we'll have to measure to know for certain.

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Re:Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people ... by Alex3917 on Thursday February 07, 2013 @02:04PM (#5183892)

"I like your hypothesis about greater willingness to admit to "bad behavior" in the distant past than in the recent past. My intuition is that anonymity weakens that effect, but we'll have to measure to know for certain."

If you look at this report on the validity of self-reported drug use, it goes into the issue of how people are more likely to admit bad behavior that happened long ago. Anonymity probably does ameliorate the problem, but I'm guessing that it would still be significant.

http://archives.drugabuse.gov/pdf/monographs/monograph167/do...

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Re:Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people ... by jseliger on Thursday February 07, 2013 @02:30PM (#5184023)

Great link—thanks for posting it—too few people cite the sources for their beliefs. In a related context, "Truth and consequences: using the bogus pipeline to examine sex differences in self-reported sexuality" discusses how "some of the sex differences in self-reports of sexuality are not due to actual sex differences in behavior, but rather to differences in reporting as a function of differential normative expectations for men and women": http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Truth+and+consequences%3a+usin... .

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Re:Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people ... by arrrg on Thursday February 07, 2013 @03:44PM (#5184385)

Not just the operationalization of relevant variables, also the analysis of the data is lacking. There are some very standard and boring methods to get a much clearer idea of whether there actually is a difference and also to more clearly look at interaction effects (between, say, age, gender and behavior).

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