Do you know that every time you get a new text, the brain secretes a substance called dopamine? This substance is responsible for the feeling of happiness we get when a new notification pops up. That’s why you always get so angry when your phone lights up and it’s another annoying text from MTN.

The modern rave that is Snapchat allows you broadcast videos across the internet in seconds as well as stream the videos that others put up. Artists like Bryson Tiller will be grateful for the SnapChat videos from Kylie Jenner whose influence on the Snap helped turn ears to his music. And that’s just an example of how major deal Snapchat is, they totally changed the game. They designed each post last for only a specified period of time, and for anyone who uses the app, this really works two ways.

You get the impression that the day you aren’t online, you might miss something important and you keep coming back—even though 90% of the time, your timeline is just full of pouting faces and people doing random shit.The second way that works is that those who are somewhere between too cool and too insecure to have hundreds of posts online at once would be rescued from their literal “social insecurity”. Everything that happens on Snapchat only stays on Snapchat and you will be notified when conversations saved. Now instead of going back to delete drunken tweets in the morning after you can sleep easy knowing even if you created a stripping alter ego, they will only live until the twenty-four-hour period clocks at 0:00.

This revolutionary app has woven its way deeply into our DNA, tricking us all into thinking our lives are interesting enough to have a reality show. We have gone from watching other people’s lives on TV, to creating our own lives on the internet, and to the greatness of our generation, we’re all living to see snow white angels like Bobrisky literally descend from heaven to become Nigerian pop culture icons.

Snapchat knows how our brain works. We have gotten high on our own need for validation and the need to know about other people’s lives and addiction has slowly crept up on us. Those quick and seemingly harmless highs have made us slaves to our phones. We can barely stand radio silence for longer than a day before the withdrawal symptoms start to take over our minds. You won’t agree now, but you will remember this when you catch yourself checking every hour to see how many new people have watched your  snap story.

Featured image credit: thenextweb.com