Discord is the communications platform that enables you to build meaningful connections around the joy of playing games through voice, video and text features. People use Discord daily to talk about many things, ranging from art projects and family trips to homework and mental health support. It's a home for communities of any size, but it's most widely used by small and active groups of people who talk regularly.
The vast majority of servers are smaller, invite-only spaces for groups of friends and communities to stay in touch and spend time together. There are also larger, more open communities, generally centered around specific topics such as popular games like Minecraft and Fortnite. Users have control over whom they interact with and what their experience on Discord is.
People love Discord because it’s a home for all their communities and groups of friends. It's a place where they can be themselves and spend time with other people who share their interests and hobbies. Conversations on Discord are driven by the people you choose and the topics you choose to talk about.
Discord Glossary
Discord has its own vocabulary. You might hear your teen or students using these words when talking about Discord.
Server: Servers are the spaces on Discord. They're made by friend groups and specific communities. The vast majority of servers are small and invitation-only. This is where your teens could either be connecting with existing friends or making new friendships.
Channel: Discord servers are organized into text and voice channels, which are usually dedicated to specific topics and can have different rules that are set by the server owners. These rules are an additional layer on top of our Community Guidelines.
Direct Message (DM): Users can send messages to other users as a direct message (DM), as well as start a voice or video call. DMs are one-on-one conversations.
Streaming + Screen Share: Discord has a livestream feature which allows users to share their voice, webcam, and/or computer screen to anyone else in the voice channel.
GDMs: Users can invite up to nine others to a DM to create a group DM (GDM). With a maximum size of ten participants, Group DMs require an invite from someone in the group to join.
Go Live: Users can share their screen with other people who are in a server or a DM/GDM with them.
Nitro: Nitro is Discord’s premium subscription service. Nitro offers enhanced streaming and customization features, such as the option to customize your Discord Tag, the ability to use custom emotes in every server, a higher file upload cap, and discounted Server Boosts.
Server Boosts: If your teen is a big fan of a community, they might want to boost the community’s server (or their own). Like Nitro, Server Boosts give servers special perks like more custom emotes, better video and voice quality, and the ability to set a custom invite link. Server Boosts can be bought with Nitro or purchased separately.
Why people love Discord
Below, you can see just a few of our favorite stories about what people are doing on Discord and why they love it. You can find even more stories about how people use Discord right here.
Cyndie, a parent of two from North Carolina, reflects on how her family uses Discord:
“There are four of us and we all have Discord installed on both our computers and phones. My oldest son is in an apartment, and the younger one is on campus, so we use Discord to make family plans. Everything gets dropped into that server. From dinner’s ready to internships and job offers. Usually it’s the silly, stupid stuff we just drop in that makes us all laugh, like when there’s a Weird Al question on Jeopardy. I can’t imagine life without it.”
Genavieve, a high-school student from California, talks about how her classes use Discord:
"I've been using Discord for the last two years as my main communication with my friends. We had too many people in our group chat and wanted a platform where we could all communicate with each other. Discord is a great way for a friend group of thirty people to stay in touch! Also, with distance learning in place, I’ve started using it with my AP Physics class too. It's been so important to feel connected to our teachers and each other when we are so isolated and in such a difficult class. Using Discord brought us closer together as a class — we are already a small class of 22 students, so being able to joke around and send memes helps us not feel so alone during the distance learning. The different channels and @mentions make it much easier to keep information straight. Screenshare makes it even easier, so we can show each other documents or problems we are working on to get feedback or troubleshooting advice.”
David, a physics and math tutor from New Jersey, talks about how he teaches students and connects with other teachers over Discord:
"I use Discord to tutor one of my students and to stay up to date with conversations and announcements in a group of physics teachers interested in physics education research. It's nice to see a side-by-side camera view of my desk with the student's work. I also really like that the audio through the OPUS codec which sounds very clean."
