Ephemeral messaging app Snapchat knows its demographic well. Teens are still at the mercy of their parents’ financial decisions, and that can sometimes mean they don’t have a whole bunch of mobile data to use up every month.
Luckily for data-strapped teens (and everyone else), the company rolled out a new data-conserving feature Monday. “Travel Mode,” which “disables auto-loading of content like Stories when you’re using mobile data,” as it’s described in the app.
Snapchat Stories are collections of photos or videos users can create to broadcast to all their friends. Snapchat’s own employees also curate collections around various events or locations, like a soccer match or New York City.
The feature’s name presumably stems from the idea that traveling users might be roaming, and wouldn’t necessarily want to rack up extra charges.
It’s not exactly clear how much data this feature can save the average user. Considering that Stories update fairly frequently and can contain even a couple of minutes worth of content, the savings could be substantial.
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