It seems like Snapchat really wants to become the ultimate stalking master. It has recently released a feature with the help of which you can basically see where your friends are at any time of the day. Or night for that matter.
This new feature, called the Snap Map, allows you to see a map of all “Snaptivities” and the location of your friends. You can see all your friends (who set their account on visible), snaps created on different sides of the world like celebrations, events or breaking news, and stories you didn’t have access to until now.
Your friends will appear on the Snap Map with their Bitmojis and sometimes you may even see their Bitmoji’s driving or doing other activities based on their location. For example, if it assumes you’re at the beach based on where you are, it will show you laying on a beach. You can see from the photo that the user is close to a mall, so it added some shopping bags to the Bitmoji.
If your friends didn’t set up a Bitmoji, they will appear with a blank Bitmoji outline.
How To Use Snap Map?
1. How to access the Snap Map?
To open the Snap Map, simply go to your Snapchat account on your camera screen and pinch the screen with your fingers. Just like you do when you zoom in on a photo.
After opening the Snap Map, you’ll be able to see your friends that have chosen to share their location with you.
To start a chat with a friend or see when their location was last updated, tap on their Bitmoji. People’s location on the map is updated only when Snapchat is open and disappears as soon as the user changes its location.
If you can’t see one of your friends on the map, you can use the Search feature that’s at the top of your screen.
If you’re ‘lost’ on the map, simply tap the button in the bottom right corner to go back to your current location.
2. Snap Map Settings
You can choose to either share your location on Snap Map or not. You can change the settings like this.
As you can see, you can share your location with all your friends, only a group of your friends or you can turn on the Ghost Mode which will allow you to see all your friends’ locations, but they won’t see yours. What you need to keep in mind relating these privacy settings is that whether you’re on Ghost Mode or not, the snaps you post to an “Our Story” can still be seen on the Map.
3. Stories on the Map
Only the stories submitted to an “Our Story” can appear on the map and you can usually find stories from the whole wide world. Even though you have submitted a story, that might not appear on an “Our Story” because of the automated systems implemented by Snapchat that decide what goes on the Map and what doesn’t, based on some criteria, like your location.
You can view a story by tapping the circular thumbnail on the map. If you don’t see any, zoom in on some locations and you’ll see them pop up. The blue zones on the Map represent places from where were taken some snaps, while red means that there are lots of snaps from that location.
4. Reporting a Story on the Snap Map
Sometimes, inappropriate snaps appear in the stories. Then, the option to report a story comes in hand. Here’s how to do that:
- Tap and hold on the Story you want to report.
- Tap on the flag that appears in the bottom left corner.
- Choose the reason for your report. The reasons can be – the story contains nudity or sexual content, harassment or hates speech, threatening violent or concerning content, it could be spam, or you could report it because of the copyright infringement.
Why use the Snap Map?
I find it incredibly useful to see how other people from other corners of the world live. It’s giving me the possibility of learning more about other cultures and habits and attend events I otherwise wouldn’t find out about.
Are you using it? What’s your opinion on this new feature from Snapchat? Let me know in the comments section below!
See also: The Easiest Way to use Snapchat Filters
