Jott is a messaging app geared toward kids and teens. For those who don't have a mobile data plan for texting, Jott helps them connect online with their fellow classmates at school.

You could say that Jott has pulled several popular features together from other popular social networks and messaging apps and rolled them into one convenient app so that users have one place to do it all. Whether it's Snapchat-inspired stories or Facebook Messenger-inspired group chats, Jott acts as a one-stop shop for all your online socialization with school friends.

Getting Started with Jott

Anyone who downloads Jott will notice that the app gives users the option to sign in with Instagram so they can chat with their friends in their networks. Upon signing up, users are asked to verify their accounts by phone or by email, and from there they can customize a few profile options and sync up their contacts.

Profiles resemble those of Facebook or Twitter, where a profile photo is featured along with a header image that will show photo or video stories when they're posted. Users can also add their school to make it easier to connect with friends who go to the same school.

To add friends, there are a number of options Users can choose to continuously upload their contacts from their address book, look at friend suggestions, add specific usernames or add phone numbers. They can also search for users to add by AirChat to scan for other Jott users nearby.

Jott Features

Jott is like a mishmash of all the other popular social apps teens already love. Here are the main features:

Home feed: See what your friends are up to by getting a glimpse of their most recent story content posted to their profiles.

Profile: Add your profile photo, name, other social accounts, status, school, and grade to share with friends.

Chat: Invite friends to chat with you. Send photos and videos in addition to text.

Groups: Create or join a group with up to 50 other users. Messages will disappear later for when chats need to be kept on the down low.

Stories: See what friends are doing right now by checking out their photo and video stories. Similar to Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook stories, they disappear after a short period.

Screenshot detection: There's a screenshot detection feature similar to Snapchat that sends users notifications if the person they're chatting with snapped a screenshot of their message.

Privacy: Set your profile to private so that only friends and classmates can view your stories and profile.

Using AirChat to Chat Offline

The big draw for this app has to do with the fact that users can chat with each other without a data plan and without a Wi-Fi connection. AirChat is the technology that makes this possible.

To do this, the app encourages users to turn on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios so that it can operate on Bluetooth low energy via a mesh network or a router that has a 100-foot radius. Once users have set up their devices for offline chatting and are within close proximity to each other, they can instant message each other using both text and photos.

During school hours, teens who are close enough to each other in the same building or schoolyard can use Jott for offline messaging. The more Jott contacts a user has, the farther it will reach. And it since it can be used from an iPad or other tablet devices, it's not absolutely necessary to have a smartphone to be able to use it.

Overall, it's really the ultimate solution for teen tech enthusiasts who just aren't yet old enough to pay for their own plans. Jott is available to download for free for both iOS and Android devices.

Teen Trends in App Messaging and Texting

Jott may be the hot new app among teens, but there's still lots more to say about how they choose to interact using technology. A 2015 study published by Pew Research revealed some interesting statistics about how American teens ages 13 to 17 are embracing communication in the mobile era:

88 percent own or have access to a cell phone or smartphone

73 percent actually own their own smartphone

91 percent of those who do use cell phones or smartphones send and receive texts, either by SMS or through web apps

The average teen sends and receives about 30 texts a day

33 percent use social messaging apps like WhatsApp, Kik Messenger, and others

41 percent (or two-in-five teens) use Snapchat

91 percent go online using a mobile device at least occasionally

92 percent go online daily

Teens today are more plugged in than ever, and they'll likely continue to be the major driving demographic of up and coming popular apps for many years to come.