A more recent study observed that young adults do use cell
phones to text their parents and siblings (Crosswhite, Rice, & Asay,
2014). The young adults ranked reasons for texting family members,
which included: (1) sharing information, (2) planning activities,
(3) having general conversation, and (4) sending pictures and
jokes. Young adults may or may not prefer texting over Snapchat,
but from a U&G perspective they would actively decide which one
would meet their social needs in their current context. Snapchat is a
mobile app and young adults may use the platform to communicate
with family members for similar reasons that they report for
texting family members. Providing some support for this proposition,
Utz et al. (2015) reported that the second highest ranking
motivation for using Snapchat among their young adult participants
was to keep in touch with family and friends.