Here’s why Snapchat is disabling its ‘Solar System’ feature

Snapchat has always stayed relevant with pre-teens and adolescents owing to its youth-friendly features. However, Solar System, a paid feature for Snapchat subscribers, was recently labelled ‘dangerous’ and is slated to be withdrawn from the smartphone app. Here’s everything you need to know about the move:

What is the Solar System feature on Snapchat?

Snapchat+ subscribers have access to a feature that shows users their top friends in the form of a Solar System. A ‘planet’ is allotted to this friend based on the frequency of your communication with them.

For instance, a friend who speaks the most with you is awarded the Mercury position. Alternatively, those whom you don’t interact with frequently can have the Neptune or Pluto spot.

Why is Snapchat pulling the plug on this feature?

Only last month, a WSJ report highlighted the rise of teen anxiety based on the friend-ranking feature by Snapchat. While your Solar System may not be visible to your friends, finding out that users are not in the ‘number one’ spot has reportedly led to conflicts.

According to Snapchat, only 0.25 per cent of the paid users make the most of this feature. While the image-sharing platform will continue the feature for everyone, it will turn it off by default and switch it on only for users if required by them.

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That said, Snapchat still has multiple other ways to determine your top friend. One of these is the ‘Best Friends’ feature, which puts an emoji next to the name of your favourite contact.

Another popular way that determined this is the Snap Streaks feature, which encouraged users to frequent the app by offering a visual count of the number of days they have stayed in touch with their contact. However, like the Solar System feature, Streaks too, faced a backlash and the smartphone app had to introduce a way to pause it for users.