community contribution #4

I don’t know exactly how social media or algorithms are exactly designed but from my experience as a user, it feels like algorithms are tailored to what I want to watch, to keep me on the app. For example, on TikTok my for you page shows me a lot of makeup and outfit videos. One of my friends gets a lot of content about puppies. Our contrasting algorithms make sense based on our different interests, leading to different experiences on the same platform. Technology and social media impact the content and therefore people we connect with. The various platforms will show us people we will theoretically connect to. This can be a positive as we can find people we share opinions or common interests with. However, I think this can cost us being unaware other people’s perspectives. The apps are designed in a way to keep users engaging. If we are interacting with posts that have shared the generally same opinion, the algorithm is designed to keep feeding us similar posts because that is what we like. According to the article What are Affordances,  an affordance is, “an action possibility in the relation between user and an object”. Rather than just being property of the object alone, from reading this article I understood that an affordance depends on the relationship between user and object. So, a platform’s features create opportunities for interactions to happen but how users interact with the features shows a heavy impact. Overall, I know I still have a lot to learn but I thought it was interesting this week to learn about how technology influences our connections.

References

IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation. “What are Affordances?” IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation. 9 Oct. 2026 https://ixdf.org/literature/topics/affordances