BeReal, an app originating from France with over 21.6 million users, has widely spread amongst the Palatine High School population. Students wait for their phones to notify them once a day at a random time in order to update their friends on what they are doing at that current moment. It has given people the opportunity to share their activities without oversharing and by “being real”.

“It isn’t very time consuming since it’s only one post a day, and it’s easy to make the app as personal or public as you want, based on how many friends you want to add,” senior Leah Bellof said. 

Many students at Palatine have been using BeReal as a way to keep in touch with each other, which may have made a large impact on the school as a whole. 

“I think BeReal has sort of humanized people in the school because it’s a window to see what other people are genuinely doing, not just what they want you to see on Instagram,” senior Matt Stepp said.

Although this app may bring joy too many faces at our school, it also bothers certain students for many reasons.

“It shows an ‘unedited’ version of people’s lives unlike Snapchat or Instagram which are more thought out and edited,” senior Grace Reiser said. “So if people think your ‘unedited’ life is so much better than their own it affects their mood and makes them feel left out.”

When BeReal notifies a device, it initially gives their users 2 minutes to post exactly what they are doing in that current moment, anything after that they can still post, but it will be put as ‘late’ until the BeReal for the next day goes off. 

“A lot of people don’t use the app right and don’t post at the time that you are meant to ”BeReal”, which defeats the entire purpose of the app,” senior Emily Ziemba said. “By posting late it is allowing you to be fake, which is a feature that I believe should be removed.”

Whether or not BeReal is loved by all, it is clearly an app that is popular amongst the PHS student body, and will continue to grow as the school year goes on. 

“I love BeReal because there’s no judgment and I can quite literally, be real,” senior Erin McGinn said.