Facebook’s Lifestage is a teen-centric sharing app developed by a teen

Social networking giant Facebook this past weekend announced an all new social networking app for teenagers. Dubbed Lifestage, the app is made for 21-year-olds and younger, and allows teens to share and view bio videos.

“Lifestage makes it easy and fun to share a visual profile of who you are with your school network. Simply capture into a field on your profile, then post it on your profile,” reads the app description page.

The app also aims to make use of secondary and tertiary education networks, a lot like Facebook in its early years.

“Once your school is unlocked, you can access the profiles of others in your school community (and all over!) so you can get to know people better in your school and nearby schools, discover others who are into the same stuff you are, and connect with them.”

The app was developed by 19-year-old Michael Sayman, who previously built the charades-inspired photo sharing app 4Snaps.

Technically, if you’re 22 and older you can still download and use the app, but it’s extremely limited — you won’t be able to view others’ profiles. That’s largely because Facebook’s aiming Lifestage at the teenagers of the world, perhaps hoping to pick up users alienated by Snapchat’s growing adult userbase.

Lifestage was developed by 19-year-old Facebook employee Michael Sayman

Much like Snapchat’s Stories and Instagram’s Stories features, Lifestage allows users to snap a number of images, which the app transforms into a video. That videos are then used as a front for users’ bio pages. All information shared on the app is also openly viewable to those who are of age.

“Please note: Everything you post in Lifestage is always public and viewable by everyone, inside and outside your school. There is no way to limit the audience of your videos,” the app’s description explains.

That disregard for privacy has however come under scrutiny from some.

“I don’t like how much information you have to give out,” explained one reviewer on the App Store.

“I don’t want my phone number to be known nor do I want everyone to know my Instagram and Snapchat. I could not figure out how to take a picture or why my school was needed. Like I said, I don’t want all my information out there.”

Lifestage isn’t yet available in South Africa or on Android, but if you happen to be based in the US and have an iOS device, you can pick up Facebook’s latest app here.