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

(Pexels 2020)

When Facebook and Instagram began as an internet site that could connect people based on friendships or mutual likes, no one imagined that it could open up the world into people's individual and personal worlds. But here we are in 2020 with social media tools that allow us to see people as they really are, or as they want to be seen.

Social Media has so many positive and negative branches that can be also called 'affordances'. Affordances are described as something that is designed for one thing but ends up having so many other uses that the designer didn't originally create (Norman 2011).

Social Media has opened up the world into people's lives, as well as the corresponding effect of peoples lives being open to business, entertainment and cleverly subtle marketing tools. It is incredibly easy to find out a lot of information about an individual just by 'cyberstalking' their social media channels.

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Another affordance that Facebook and Instagram in particular are used for, and employers increasingly use, is to research an individual as a prospective employee. If you can gain access to a personal Facebook page or Instagram page you can gain a pretty good understanding of the individual and whether they are who they say they are, and who you're looking for. Being able to see a prospective employees likes and interests, their photos, who their friends are, all of this paints a picture of who the person is.

Another affordance is the ability to project your desired self onto social media. Through clever apps and filters and being able to edit everything before posting, we are now able to project the perfect edition of ourselves. So many social media influencers paint the perfect life on their accounts and cause followers to try and live up to that perfection which becomes exhausting and damages mental health. As the following YouTube post by Social Media Influencer, Michelle Lou Lan (Instagram 2020) explains, so many dive into social media trying to find perfection and "become overwhelmed". She asserts one of the answer is to "Find what makes you, You".

                                                                                     (TedxTalks 2017)

So while there are many positive affordances that have outworked from the social media phenomena, some of the negative affordances have been a decline in mental health and self image. This has created a corresponding effect to have mental health coaches and health professionals, and another whole industry has emerged out of the need for positively dealing with social media.

Could Newton's third law of "action and corresponding reaction" be correct in the case of social media (Khan Academy 2020) - that with every great creation, both positive and negative affordances will be birthed out of it?

References:

Interaction-Design.org 2011, Affordances (Don Norman, 1994), 15 February, viewed 17 March 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Zb_5VxuM>.

Instagram 2020, Michelle Lou Lan, viewed 18 March 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/michelleloulan/?hl=en>.

Khan Academy 2020, What is Newton's third law? viewed 17 March 2020, <https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/forces-newtons-laws/newtons-laws-of-motion/a/what-is-newtons-third-law>.

Pexels 2020, man-in-black-suit-jacket-using-laptop-computer-3789097[image], Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels, viewed 17 March 2020, <https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-black-suit-jacket-while-using-laptop-3789100/>.

Pexels 2020, Person Holding Iphone Showing Social Networks Folder-[image], Photo by Tracy Le Blanc from Pexels, viewed 17 March 2020, <https://www.pexels.com/photo/apple-applications-apps-cell-phone-607812/>.

TedxTalks 2017, The "Perfection" of Social Media | Michelle Lou Lan | TEDxUCDavisSF, viewed 17 March 2020, <https://youtu.be/9U2sVP97TyQ>.