The Importance of Affordance

 There are a lot of reasons why we use the social media we use. I have a variety of social media platforms for a plethora of reasons. To me, however, I did not realize how much I benefit from certain social media for certain things. Dr. Yunkang Yang really opened my eyes to the affordance of each social media to me. 

For starters, I did not know what affordance was. I now know that affordance refers to the action possibilities provided to the actor by the environment. How this pertains to social media is that the affordance Facebook gives to me is being able to promote content for my job. The affordance Instagram gives me is being able to have entertainment and to stay updated with friends and family. 

To get more specific with each, I'll go into what affordance each app gives me. With Instagram, I follow a lot of sports content. This is how I stay up to date with all the sports news and literally everything sports related. I also stay connected with friends and family on Instagram. I can see friends I haven't seen since high school and stay up to date with their lives. I'll even send them a message to catch up. 

Facebook provides a different affordance to me. I use Facebook for strictly work. When it comes to reaching the target audience for my job, it is no question that Facebook provides what I need. I work for a non-profit in Maryland and what we want to do is get all Latinos in Maryland the COVID-19 vaccine. Through Facebook, we are able to post information around COVID-19, share resources and more. It is very beneficial for me to be able to use this platform. 

The idea of affordance definitely connects to my interests. The whole idea with affordance is how I can benefit from something (if I know how to use it). I love sports, so the affordance Instagram gives me feeds into my interest of staying up to date with sports and knowing what is going on. They go hand and hand for sure. 


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