Snapchat is changing a Solar System subscriber-only friendship tool after complaints that it had been causing damage to younger users.
Snapchat's Solar System display, available only through a paid version of the app dubbed Snapchat+, shows with whom you most communicate in a visual outline of the solar system.
he Solar System displays the users who are in your orbit, based upon engagement, using a different planet that corresponds to the actual planet's proximity to the sun. So your best friend, for instance, would be represented as Mercury, the closest to the sun.

According to Snap, the service has received "overwhelmingly positive feedback" over this feature, used by less than 0.25% of our Snap users each day. Still, some have opined that the display inadvertently creates a ranking system among friend groups.

Which, as opposed to displaying the function to Snapchat+ users by default, can have adverse effects, so Snap has now declared that it will make the Solar System display an opt-in function.

According to Snap:

We know that although it feels good to know that you are close to someone, it feels bad to know that you don't feel as close to a friend as you would have liked to be. We've heard, and understood, that the Solar System can make this worse, and we want to avoid that, so we're turning the Solar System feature off by default, such that Snapchat+ subscribers who might want more insight into their friendships can turn it on, but those who don't will never have to see it.

It's because of a Wall Street Journal article from last week outlining the negative effects the feature is bringing to some users and their relationships.
 According to WSJ:

"The young adults I interviewed who had paid accounts said they had seen friendships splinter and young love wither based on knowledge that someone else ranked higher in the app. Some say teens signed up for Snapchat+ to check their status with a crush."

That's probably very illogical, a wee overreaction to the functionality of an app. Well, we've all been teenagers, and we all know that we'd probably at least have checked into the same if we could.

And so it makes sense that Snap demotes the feature, making it opt-in. Actually though, they should just eliminate it. It's no difference maker either way they have it or not.

I mean, it didn't even exist till last year, and it's probably driving a pretty tiny number of Snapchat+ new sign-ups.

So why not dump it?
That was actually what I thought Snap was announcing when I first read today's update; no, it's still going to be there, and teens are still going to use it as a rough comparison of their popularity and social status.

In the end, it will likely just see Snap discard it anyway. Maybe, presently, it is generating enough extra Snapchat+ sign-ups to make it worth keeping around, though I suspect that it'll eventually prove to be more bother than it is worth.

And that, in turn, will eventually see it culled, at some stage.

But for now, it's being buried a little bit more within the app. Will that stop teens from using it? No, it won't.