Yik Yak, a social media app, found almost instant popularity with students at New Trier, however has caused headaches for both faculty and administration.

Yik Yak allows students to post messages anonymously onto a “feed.” The messages posted onto your feed depends on your location. Messages only appear within a five mile radius of your location. However, students posted messages attacking other students over the app about things such as popularity, gender, race, sexuality, and appearance, causing numerous problems for Administration.

Yik Yak terrorized the halls of New Trier for a little over a week, however the amount of destruction it caused towards students and faculty was undeniable.

While many students may have began posting on the app as a joke, towards the end of its life at New Trier, many of the messages being posted on the app were downright mean, leading many people feeling bullied. The school administration sent a letter to all New Trier students on March 5th, telling them to delete the app and warning parents about the dangers of Yik Yak.

New Trier was not the only school affected by Yik Yak. Both Glenbrook North and Whitney Young had problems with the program as well.

Yik Yak was disabled on March 7th in the Chicagoland Area. Users who go on the app in an area near a school where the app is disabled will be met with a message saying, “It looks like you are using this at a high school or middle school which is not allowed. Sending and reading messages is disabled.”

While it may have been around New Trier for only a week, the lasting impact that Yik Yak had on the school and the student body–though brief–did not go unnoticed.