Apps are very popular today, especially for teens. With an estimated 78% of teens now having a cell phone, and almost half of that group (47%) owning smart phones, the smart move in the industry is designing the newest and hottest app.

According to technology writer Gary Cutlack, “apps are self-contained programs” you can download to your smart phone. A wide array of apps are free to download, and tend to be fairly inexpensive depending on what you are looking for in an app.

In Gregory Ferenstein’s article “Here are the apps teens actually love, in 5 charts,’” he reports on a survey of 7,000 teens that the curator Niche conducted regarding the apps that teens must have. According to Ferenstein, “Facebook and Youtube reign supreme, with 61 percent and 55 percent of daily active users, respectively. Instagram and the Facebook-nemesis team over at snapchat are neck-and-neck in the race for photo sharing apps (around 50 percent).”

Freshman at Paint Branch Marrisa Lawrence says, “Facebook is played out and I prefer instagram over any photo sharing app; time flies when I’m on instagram.”

Instagram is an app where users can post photos from past and present or videos for up to 20 seconds that others in your local area can see and “like” If they want to respond or rate it.
snapchat is another photo sharing app. On snapchat, users take up to 10 second videos and post pictures for their friends to see.

Tanaya Miller, a freshman, says, “I like snapchat because I can just record or take a picture of what is happening instead of writing it”.

Youtube is quite diverse in what it offers to users. The app allows user to do simple things such as watching videos and listening to music. However, it also provides educational resources as well.
Screen Retriever, a website for families that helps them better understand what apps are and how to evaluate them, reports in their article “What mobile apps are popular with tweens and teens?” Parents that know about apps run the site. In the site they can either write or read about each app that is on their child’s phone; just in case any parent becomes worried or questions an app; other parents can help them out.

Several apps have been extremely popular for a significant period of time including Instagram, Twitter, snapchat, Netflix, Facetime, ask.fm, kik messenger, Tumblr and Vine. In all of these apps, users can interact and talk to people in the same age group. Ultimately, what teens are looking for in an app is all about what they love to do – talk to local people and make new friends, get followers, find out other people’s opinions and watch funny videos. The right move for app developers is pretty much anything to entertain today’s teens.