Social media platforms, their affordances, and how we make use of them

Firstly, what are affordances?

Don Norman (2011) says affordance “refers to the properties of an object and the person. It’s the relationship between the person and the object and what that person can do with the object”. Udacity (2015) released the video below to illustrate how affordances and limitations affect the relationship between object and person.

Ever since CERN gifted the world wide web to the public in 1993, there has been rapid ever-changing technology and new ways of sharing information (Sheppard 2014).  Facebook launched in 2004 followed by countless other social networking sites that afford people ways to share, connect and stay in touch. Long gone are the days where the only way to connect with distant friends and family was by letter or telephone. I personally find it quite humorous when children and teenagers can’t comprehend a time without the internet or social media, how did we survive?

Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are all popular for sharing ideas, photographs, videos and stories to satisfy the human need to reach out and experience a social connection. This affordance is utilised by over half of all internet users, although research show that most users are unaware of this need (Oeldorf-Hirsch & Sundar 2016, pp. 624-642).

Twitter is a very open and exposed platform, unless the user makes their account private, their tweets become more of a stream accessible to the world as opposed to a conversation between friends. Two affordances integral to Twitter’s design, and formerly unique to Twitter is the use of Hashtags to link the tweets of strangers on similar topics together and the ability to direct a post at someone, including a celebrity by ‘tagging’ them, for example @BarackObama (Murthy 2012, pp. 3-4).

Twitter also affords the ability for people around the world to unite in protest, raise issues and have their voice heard.

The video by McGill’s Desautels highlights the key points of Social Media Affordances for Connective Action: An Examination of Microblogging Use During the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, a research paper project headed up by Professor Emmanuelle Vaast. The spill was the most tweeted event in 2010.

This affordance is further evidenced in the rise of Hashtag campaigns such as: Black Lives Matter, Me Too, JeSuis Charlie, Ice Bucket Challenge and LGBTQIA.

However, the affordances of social media can have a dark side and create negative social experiences for users. A 2014 research study on the psychological stressors indicated that lengthy time spent on Facebook decreased user’s well-being, self-esteem and increased anxiety and a sense of pressure to always be connected (Fox & Moreland 2015).

When users publicly share, they’re exposing themselves to the possibility of negative responses and criticism. Despite anti-bullying campaigns there seems to be an increase in cyber-bullying, which has led to suicides, and trolls are relentless.

I’m sure many users have had their social experienced tarnished by trolls at some stage. On one occasion, I reposted an article of sickening allegations against a person in a position of power which resulted in abuse from their followers, and a passive aggressive threat from someone holding a pistol in his profile picture of “you better watch yourself lil snowflake”.

Social networks have also been used as a tool for harassment, stalking, discrimination and spreading extremism. While sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram could stop this, from my observations, they rarely seem to act on it.

One of the most popular affordances of several social media sites is the like button. Many users place too much value on the number of likes they get on a post and can obsess about it. Getting likes on a post can lead to a sense of self-affirmation, but not enough likes can affect self-esteem and have a negative impact (Fox & Moreland 2015).

Instagram recently announced they would be removing the like function. This article from SBS online suggests that the move will be a win for regular users and beneficial to mental health (Leighton-Dore 2019), but ‘influencers’ (those ‘beautiful people’ who promote products for freebies or payment) depend on the likes as part of their model and won’t be happy about the change.

In a recent news story that went viral and gathered a lot of support, Mr Joe Nicchi, an ice cream van owner was so tired of influencers demanding free product that he used his businesses Instagram account to announce that he would charge influencers double.

---

References:

Fox, J & Moreland, J. 2015, ‘The dark side of social networking sites: An exploration of the relational and psychological stressors associated with Facebook use and affordances, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 45, April 2015, Pages 168-176

Interaction-Design.org 2011, Affordances (Don Norman, 1994), 15 February, viewed 16 April 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Zb_5VxuM&gt;.

Oeldorf-Hirsch, A & Sundar, S. 2016, ‘Social and Technological Motivations for Online Photo Sharing’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60:4, 624-642.

Leighton-Dore, S. 2019, ‘Will getting rid of Instagram likes finally get rid of the pressure of living up to the hype?’, SBS Online, viewed 19 July 2019, <https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/life/culture/article/2019/07/18/why-instagram-removing-likes-win-everyone&gt;.

Murthy, D 2013, Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age, Wiley, pp. 3-4.

Nevitt, J. 2019, ‘Influencers pay double: The ice cream truck defying Instagram freebies’, BBC News 4 July, viewed 4 July 2019, <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48873551&gt;.

Sheppard, F 2014, ‘A brief history of the internet over the past 20 years and the role of the World Wide Web’, viewed 19 July 2019, <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-25/internet-changes-over-20-years/5470442&gt;.

Udacity 2015, Definition: Affordance – Intro to the Design of Everyday Things, 23 February, viewed 20 July 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6F0EYCUjcE&gt;.

Vaast, E, Safadi, H, Lapointe, L & Negoita, B 2017, ‘Social Media Affordances for Connective Action: An Examination of Microblogging Use during the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill’, MIS Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 1179–1206.