We all know what it feels like having too many notifications popping up on our phones due to messages in a group chat, whether it is a Whatsapp group or simply on iMessage well, there’s a new one to add to the mix. This week Snapchat became the latest social platform to offer a group chat function for its users, allowing up to 16 people to snap together. The video and photo sharing app, famous for its filters, has also introduced a host of new features along with the group chat function including a Shazam capability, Snapchat users can now identify the name of a song being played around them by holding down on the camera button. The app has also introduced scissors and paintbrush functions, giving users the opportunity to turn themselves into a sticker by taking a snap, cutting it and saving it in the Stickers drawer alongside pre-existing ones. The paintbrush allows users to draw over their saved snaps before posting the works of art to their story.

For many of us, social media offers a previously blacked out window into the lives of celebrities. We can easily find out where they are, what they’re launching, what they’re eating, which designer threads they are sporting and read their general musings on life. Some choose to opt in and out depending on how their career is tracking (and trending). Many are frequent tweeters and Instagrammers (Kardashian clan we’re looking at you) but one celeb that hit the headlines this week is Ed Sheeran. The singer-songwriter rather understatedly announced his return to social media with a single blue image posted on Twitter and Instagram this week. His first post in 12 months since he announced he was signing out last December to take to the open road.

In the week when the song Sheeran wrote for X Factor winner Matt Terry, When Christmas Comes Around, is released, social media has been taken over with speculation around the forthcoming release of new material. In a world dominated by comments, shares, re-tweets and posts it seems a picture (or a blue square at least) can paint a thousand words. Here’s hoping we can look forward to more Ed Sheeran music and musings in 2017.