On the surface, Gas, a new app catching fire with high schoolers, sounds as much like an educator鈥檚 dream come true as any social media platform could be.
Strangers can鈥檛 contact kids. Users can only say nice things to each other, by participating in polls with an ostensibly positive spin, instead of writing their own, possibly hurtful messages.
But dig a little deeper and it鈥檚 clear that Gas鈥攔ecently the number one downloaded free social media app in Apple鈥檚 app store鈥攈as serious flaws, experts said. As with other forms of social media, there鈥檚 still potential for hurt feelings and even bullying. What鈥檚 more, the app鈥檚 business model seems tailor-made to profit off teenage insecurities.
For now, 糖心动漫vlog aren鈥檛 sure what to make of Gas.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like the lesser of two evils,鈥� compared with other apps popular with teens such as SnapChat, where cyberbullying thrives, said Lydia McNeiley, the college and career coordinator for Indiana鈥檚 Hammond school district. 鈥淚s it better for [kids] to be online or play on an app where you don鈥檛 have to worry about predators, where you don鈥檛 have to worry about negative [messages]? Definitely.鈥�
But she doesn鈥檛 like what the app鈥檚 popularity鈥攊t鈥檚 been downloaded more than half a million times, according to the Wall Street Journal鈥攕eems to say about where students鈥� self-worth is coming from these days.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 agree with using an app or a poll or anything like that to make you feel better. But unfortunately, [that is the case] in the world that we live in right now,鈥� she said.
Gas鈥攖he name stems from the idea of 鈥済assing鈥� someone up, Gen Z-speak for making people feel good about themselves鈥攈as skyrocketed in popularity since its launch in late August. Users select their school and grade from a pre-populated list based on their location to begin building their contacts, , a nonprofit that studies youth and technology.
Most social media platforms鈥擨nstagram, TikTok, and Twitter鈥攕howcase user-generated posts. But on Gas, teens are presented with polls, and asked to choose which of four listed contacts has the best photos, who always passes the vibe check, who is the most empathetic, who is always flirting, or who they鈥檇 want to hold hands with during a horror movie.
Some of those superlatives may strike older generations as something dreamed up by John Hughes, the 1980s-era director of teen romance movies such as 鈥淧retty in Pink鈥� and 鈥淪ixteen Candles.鈥� That鈥檚 by design. Romance is part of the draw of Gas, whose developer is called Find Your Crush.
The popularity contest approach could be very harmful to kids who don鈥檛 get feedback
The problem: 鈥淚f a high school kid never gets any feedback or never gets any votes from the polls, then that silence is telling them something,鈥� said Catharyn Shelton, an assistant professor of educational technology at Northern Arizona University. 鈥淚t鈥檚 telling them nobody likes them, which can be really harmful.鈥�
The supposedly positive polls could also be used to bully, she said. For instance, someone who objectively realizes that they are not the best-looking kid in school could be mockingly selected as 鈥渕ost beautiful.鈥�
Gas tries to control for those issues, said Nikita Bier, one of the app鈥檚 founders who was also behind a similar platform called tbh. 鈥淲e designed Gas so that names are surfaced more in polls if a user has not received compliments recently,鈥� he said in an email. 鈥淥ver 95 percent of users who add friends receive a compliment within their first day of signing up.鈥�
Though the company 鈥渢ries to ensure all polls are uplifting and positive,鈥� Gas recognizes that they can be misused, Bier said. But such incidents are 鈥渆xtremely rare,鈥� he added. After sending 1.5 billion polls, Gas received fewer than a dozen complaints about the problem.
Shelton, a former high school Spanish teacher, is also disturbed that a for-profit app can glom onto a public school 鈥渁s this easy-to-access, pre-made community,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 really grossed out by for-profit platforms that are operating in the education sphere in very manipulative ways like this app is.鈥�
Schools often have lengthy internal debates before they bring in, for instance, a snack machine for students, Shelton said. 鈥淏ut an app like this can get into a high school for free.鈥�
Schools should have the choice to opt out of being included on Gas, Shelton said. 鈥淭here should be high regulation of any technologies like this that are putting their foot into the space of children鈥檚 education in our country,鈥� she added.
Schools鈥� role on the app is limited, Bier said. 鈥淲e created school networks on Gas to make it easier to find and add your friends,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is the only function that schools serve on Gas.鈥�
鈥業t feels a little exploitative to me鈥�
There鈥檚 a lot to like about Gas, said Spencer Greenhalgh, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky鈥檚 school of information sciences. He especially praised the lack of a messaging feature, which seems like a natural for a social app for kids, but can be easily abused.
鈥淚t鈥檚 actually kind of refreshing to see that Gas is putting effort into figuring out what could go wrong and they are making specific design decisions to walk kids into something that is going to lean towards positivity and lean towards complementing each other and lean towards safety,鈥� Greenhalgh said.
But Greenhalgh has some serious concerns about the app鈥檚 business model, whose revenue seems to come largely from a paid, premium version. Users can pony up $6.99 a week to get extras, including hints about who is voting for them in polls, such as the first letter of a name, according to the Common Sense review.
Essentially, 鈥渢he way they are making money is by charging some kids access to data that other kids have generated,鈥� Greenhalgh said.
Users can find out for free that, for instance, a sophomore boy voted them as 鈥渕ost likely to make my heart skip a beat.鈥�
鈥淭hat makes you feel good,鈥� Greenhalgh said. 鈥淏ut at that point, you kind of want to know who it is. Right? It feels a little exploitative to me. 鈥� They know teenagers are insecure and they want to know what their friends think about them.鈥�
The price of the premium version is 鈥渁 lot of money,鈥� particularly for high schoolers. While he typically counsels his college students that paid, private apps are preferable to free platforms that sell user data, Gas 鈥渟eems to push the boundaries of the assumptions that I make when I give advice like that.鈥�
Most users don鈥檛 opt for the premium upgrade, Bier said. 鈥淥ur goal with Gas was to make users feel comfortable sharing this positive feedback with their friends鈥攕o we priced the reveal feature such that most compliments stay anonymous,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e think this has worked well so far: fewer than 4 percent of our users opt in for the reveal feature. We think this business model is much safer and more privacy-conscious than advertising.鈥�
It鈥檚 also easy to game some of the features Gas uses to ensure that those signing on to the app really are students at a particular school, the Common Sense Media review noted.
Though Gas was the top free social media app in Apple鈥檚 app store in October, it has slipped to number three, among free lifestyle apps. One possible reason: False internet rumors that Gas was being used for human trafficking. Those became so prevalent that police departments, including the one in Piedmont, Okla., put out warnings about the app.
The fact that those rumors even gained traction 鈥渞eally illustrates in my mind how addicted teens are to crap apps,鈥� Shelton said. Though teens feel compelled to be online, they also know the internet isn鈥檛 safe for them, she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just this interesting juxtaposition, that a rumor like that could catch on so quickly. Because we know it could be true.鈥�
