Alright, so I’ve been meaning to share this little journey of mine with Snapchat. For a while, I kept noticing these quick flashes on the app, and honestly, it was kinda bugging me ‘cause I wasn’t totally sure what each one meant. You know how it is, you see something flicker, and you’re like, “Wait, what was that?”
My Own Little Investigation
So, I decided to actually pay attention, like properly sit down and figure this stuff out. It wasn’t like I was gonna write a thesis on it, but I use the app enough that I wanted to know what all the blinking and flashing was about. My first thought was maybe it was just random glitches, or my phone screen acting weird. But it seemed too consistent for that.
I started by just watching. When I got a notification, what happened? When I was in a chat, did anything flash? When I was about to take a snap? It sounds a bit daft, spending time on this, but hey, I was curious!
Figuring Out the Notification Flashes
The first thing I kinda cottoned on to was the colored flashes when stuff came in. I’d see a quick pulse of color. After a bit of back and forth, sending test snaps with a friend (who probably thought I was nuts), I started seeing a pattern.
- A red flash usually popped up when I got a new Snap that was just a picture, or a Snap without any sound.
- Then there were these purple flashes. Those almost always meant a Snap with video and, crucially, audio. So, if someone sent a video message, boom, purple.
- And blue flashes? Those seemed to be tied to actual chat messages. Like when someone just types something out to you.
Once I got that down, it actually made things quicker. I could glance and get a rough idea of what was waiting for me. Pretty handy, actually, instead of just a generic notification.
What About Flashes When Taking Snaps?
Then there’s the other kind of “flashing” – the one that happens when you’re actually using the camera. You know, when it’s dark and you’re trying to take a selfie, and the whole screen lights up? That’s basically the screen acting as a front-facing flash.
On my Android phone, I even noticed I could mess with this a bit. There were options for the flash color when I tapped the flash icon. I saw settings for a standard white, a warmer yellow, and even a blueish tone. I guess it’s to change the mood of the photo or video. I played around with it a bit; the yellow one is kinda nice for a softer look. So yeah, that’s another very literal “flash” going on.
Any Other “Flashes”? The Peeking Thing!
I also stumbled upon something else, though it’s not a flash of light. If you’re a Snapchat+ subscriber, there’s this feature called “Peek a Peek.” What happens is, if you’re in a chat (one-on-one or a group) and a friend starts looking into that chat while you’re also looking at your main Chat feed, a little eyes emoji (👀) apparently pops up next to that conversation. It’s not a light, but that emoji “flashing” into view is definitely an indicator. I don’t have Plus myself, but a buddy who does showed it to me. So, that’s another kind of visual cue you might see pop up suddenly.
So, yeah, that’s what I dug up. It wasn’t super complicated once I actually looked. Snapchat uses these flashes and quick visual cues in a few different ways. Some are for notifications, some are for the camera, and some are little status indicators. Hope my little dive into this helps someone else out who was wondering what all that blinking was about!
