Snapchat Will Make You Feel Old

Slate tech writer Will Oremus writes today that he is baffled every time he tries to use Snapchat—he can never figure out which buttons do what, and it once took him a "full four seconds" to realize that the brown corduroys he was seeing on the screen were his own. And while this may sound like a bad-news review of the app that makes messages disappear after 10 seconds, it's actually the opposite, writes Oremus. He is 32, and he's now pretty sure that nearly everyone 25 and older is in the same boat. For Snapchat, this ability to make the not-so-old feel old "might be its greatest appeal."

In a way, Snapchat is a little like what Facebook was in its early days, "spontaneous and a little scandalous" and the exclusive domain of the young. That's bound to change as it grows into a bigger, more mainstream business, sure to be replaced by the "next Snapchat" or the "next Facebook" or whatever. "Tomorrow’s teens will move on to other things, and if there’s any justice in the world, today’s Snapchatters will find the next generation’s favorite apps every bit as impenetrable as i find theirs." Click to read the full column. (More Snapchat stories.)