New Research Reveals Communicating Online with Friends Brings Australians Happiness

From the very beginning, Snapchat was built as an alternative to social media. It was designed to be a fun way to send photo and video messages, in the moment, to your closest friends and family. It was created to be a place where you could be real and express yourself. Snapchat’s number one use case is (and always has been) messaging with friends.

Our community often tells us that Snapchat helps them stay close with friends and family, even when they’re physically apart. We know how important these relationships are to maintaining health and happiness.

Following last year’s research by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, we wanted to further explore how Snapchat supports friendships and emotional health in Australia, where a community of over 8 million Aussies come to Snapchat every month. 

To better understand how using Snapchat can positively impact our community, we commissioned YouGov to conduct research into the role online communications platforms play in relationships and wellbeing amongst Australian teens (ages 13-17) and adults (ages 18+). The research found:

• Australians feel happy when direct messaging with family and close friends. When Australians were asked how important different social media or messaging platform features are to them personally, direct messaging and communication rose to the top. These features are seen as the most important and are most likely to make people feel happy. 4-in-5 teens and 3-in-4 adults report feeling happy when direct messaging with family and close friends.

• Australians are more likely to feel happy when using messaging apps compared to social media. More than 3-in-5 (63%) adults and nearly 9-in-10 (86%) teens report feeling happy when using messaging apps for communication, significantly more than say the same about using social media platforms.

• Messaging apps are more likely to support emotional health than social media platforms. Australians are roughly 2-3 times as likely to view messaging apps as better than social media platforms for being their authentic self, developing or fostering relationships, and avoiding misunderstandings. Meanwhile, social media platforms are also more likely than messaging platforms to make people feel overwhelmed or pressured to post content that makes them look good to others. 

• Snapchat helps support and deepen friendships. Adults and teens who use Snapchat weekly or more are more likely to say they are very satisfied with the quality of the relationships they have with their close friends compared to Australian adult and teen audiences overall.

This study offers fresh insight into the ways Snapchat is fostering friendships and boosting wellbeing in Australia. We’re proud to see that our design choices over the years are helping build stronger connections and bringing more happiness. You can read YouGov’s full findings below: