This Is Why You Post More On Instagram Stories

+++ title = “10” date = 2018 +++

Both Snapchat and YouTube are video sites. Both allow every day users to upload original content. And there are some differences between the two, like, the videos on Snapchat can only be 15 seconds and disappear after a while, etc.

But there’s a big difference in the design of these sites/apps that is worth noting. When you load YouTube, the first thing you see is a bunch of content to consume that might be relevant to your interests. With Snapchat, the first thing you see is your camera.

In order to get content on YouTube, you have to plan it out. There’s a process. You cut a video, which takes some level of skill, and then you have to find the place on the site to upload it. None of this is particularly difficult, but it does provide some friction in the creation process. To sit back and watch videos on YouTube takes no effort at all and can completely suck you in. And sure, you could record a video on your phone and upload it directly to YouTube, but you still have to fill out a form that gives it a title and tags, and most people don’t use YouTube so spontaneously. Even with the most off the cuff videos, there’s still some friction that could cause a person to say, “ya know what? This is too tedious.”

Snapchat, or InstaStories, on the other hand, have no friction in the creation process. The bar is low – 15 seconds is super easy, and since it will disappear quickly, I don’t feel the type of pressure that the permanence of a YouTube video might bring on. There are people that create all sorts of video content on Instagram and Snapchat that would otherwise refrain.

Drafts, an app for iOS, works like this too. In most writing apps, you have to go through a lot of hoops just to get to the writing part. You have to click into a folder, or maybe a “new document” button or you have to find your previous document and then scroll to the bottom, etc… Drafts just opens a text editor. You type your content, and THEN decide where it goes through a series of custom actions. A little bit of investment on the front end with Drafts, but the payoff is that you can produce much more with less friction.

My Drafts app lives on my dock and I use it for anything that requires a bit of writing on my phone. I then have custom actions set up to specify where the text should go. For instance, I have a running list of things to talk about with my therapist. If a thought occurs to me, I open Drafts and can immediately capture what I’m thinking about. After I’m done, it’s two taps to hit my “Therapist” custom action which takes my text and puts it as a checkbox item at the very top of a running note in Evernote, which is saved to my shortcuts. I have Drafts actions for:

• Target runs
• General to-dos
• Tweets
• Adding lyrical ideas to my productivity system

It seems trivial but I believe the kind of old school friction in most creation apps prevents people from spreading their own ideas. I love the idea of an app that is strictly for sending your thoughts elsewhere, rather than being confronted by consumption material first.

After all, I find it so much easier to consume than to create, but I find it so much more fulfilling to create than consume.