How "The Diffusion of Innovations" Lead to SnapChat

People in today's society are all aware that there have been innovations in technology that have been transcendent to our daily lives. The innovation of new technology has come very rapidly due to a theory called Diffusion of Innovations which explains how, why and what the rate new ideas of technology spread. A great example of this theory are the four major social media sites people use today which are facebook, twitter, instagram, and snapchat which were all invented within a seven year period (2004-2011) within a seven year period (2004-2011).

Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized The Diffusion of Innovations theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations

The Diffusion of Innovations has four main elements that influence to spread a new idea which are the innovation itself, communication channels, time, and a social system. The four social media platforms mentioned above have all been created right after each other due to the Diffusion of Innovation.

Take a look at SnapChat, the last one of the four social media applications mentioned above that were created within a seven year period. Before SnapChat an innovation of sharing photos had already been established. With the innovation already established that also meant that the communication channels were already in place for a new application of the innovation that is sharing photos. Clearly all of these social media sites were not invented all at the same time so it did take extra time for SnapChat to come into its own because it is different from sites like facebook and instagram. Then came the part where SnapChat needed to adapt to the social system, which was falling for the new technology that is social media but wanted something that could give a user more privacy since other sites were known for not having much privacy. What made SnapChat such a hot commodity during its launch was that the app's purpose was to create a privacy-focused messaging app where you can view a message or a picture once and then it goes away forever. This is widely considered as an innovation but it also adapts to the social system because users were able to get the privacy they were looking for on social media with the innovation of SnapChat.

Links:
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/10/social-media-history-infographic.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations