In 2021 and 2022, BeReal took Northwestern’s campus by storm. Two years later, students have turned to a new app that asks users to relinquish control and live in the moment.
Lapse — a disposable camera for your phone — is currently ranked number one in the photo and video chart on the Apple App Store.
Some NU students are embracing it, while others say they remain loyal to BeReal.
“I think the whole point of these apps is to keep in touch with friends, especially with people you wouldn’t typically hang out with but you can still see what they’re up to,” McCormick senior Serena Lyou said.
Users can take 36 unedited shots on the same roll daily. Then, users have to wait one to three hours for the pictures to “develop” in the “darkroom.” After the pictures have developed, users can then select which pictures they want their friends to view.
Several NU students said they downloaded Lapse because a friend sent them an invite link.
“I never heard of the app before until I got sent the link,” Weinberg senior Tim Jung said.
Some students — like Bienen and Weinberg junior Julianna Wang and Communications junior Barbara Burns — said they initially found the app appealing and aesthetically pleasing but added it is also difficult to navigate.
“The developers focused a lot on making the app look appealing and didn’t spend a lot of time on how to make the app navigable for users,” Wang said.
Burns agreed, adding that she downloaded Lapse because the preview from the friend invite is visually appealing.
Nonetheless, students said they appreciated the aesthetic film filters, a key draw for users. Students said they tend to use Lapse when they want to capture something picturesque.
“Once I started taking pictures on it, the filters were super aesthetic and cute,” Lyou said.
Brothers Dan and Ben Silvertown co-founded Lapse in 2021 but launched the latest version in June 2023. The new version features a curated photo album and user profiles for those who want to use the app as a photo journal.
Students emphasized they find apps like Lapse and BeReal more important now that they are in college in different states from some of their friends.
“The apps make it easy to stay connected on a non-intrusive but consistent basis,” Leo Buckman, a McCormick and Bienen junior said.
Buckman said he prefers in-person interactions but apps like BeReal make it easy to stay connected virtually.
While Lapse has gained popularity among students, others said they remain loyal to BeReal, an app where, once a day, users take a photo of whatever they are doing when a notification goes off.
“BeReal all the way,” Wang said. “I’m not a big photography person. I mainly care about interacting with friends.”
However, some students prefer the quality of Lapse’s pictures.
Lyou said she likes the photos taken on Lapse better but prefers BeReal because of the candid vibe.
“It can be fun to bring up things posted on BeReal or Lapse,” Burns said. “It is moderately important for me to connect with people over social media.”
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