Community Contribution For Formal Feedback
Many of us, including myself, use some form of technology to communicate with others. For me personally, I use technology everyday to connect with my friends, and family as I’m sure most, if not all of you do too. The use of technology to connect with people has countless benefits, such as being able to talk to people across the country, or even on the other side of the world, anytime. The use of technology allows people to connect to whomever they want to, whenever, and from any place that has reception, which is practically everywhere. In this way technology has an influence over who we are connected to because without technology we would not be able to communicate with such a vast variety of people. Technology’s influence on who we are connected to does not stop there. Online networks are constantly collecting our data to adapt our feed, and who appears on it. For example Tik Tok uses our likes, shares, favourites, and search history to produce our for you page. Instagram shows you people you know, along with people you may know. Snapchat gives you friend suggestions based on where you live, and who your friends are friends with. An analysis found that “Facebook and Twitter networks reveal that their user’s informational input is being radically filtered” (Nguyen, C. Thi, 2026). This filtering ensures that these platforms show users more content that aligns with the users beliefs. This limits us to communicate mainly with others that share our world views, and limits our ability to communicate with others who have opposing views. The article Echo Chambers And Epistemic Bubbles (Nguyen, C. Thi, 2026) suggests two ways our online networks can be constricted. The first is called an epistemic bubble in which voices other than the widely accepted ones in a network are purposely excluded, or discredited. This is not always easy to spot when you are stuck in an epistemic bubble. It restricts the content you see, and provides less variety of opinions in the content you see. This ultimately affects the people you choose to communicate with by restricting who you view as credible. Another way online networks can be constricting is when you are in an echo chamber. Members in an echo chamber are brainwashed to only trust inside sources, disregarding all outside sources. This can not only be dangerous if you are being presented with the wrong information, but it also affects who we communicate with by heavily restricting who a user trusts. Overall, all these affect our online, and in person relationships. It is important to keep this in mind when it comes to a PLN. This is due to the fact that you want a PLN to be as diverse as possible so you are learning as much about a subject as you can. When a PLN becomes skewed to one side’s opinions you miss out on learning from other perspectives. Online platforms do not just affect communication, but they also give us cues on how to interact with them.
The term affordance can be confusing. When I first read the word I thought it was referring to what someone could afford. After this week’s readings I have come to realize it has a much deeper meaning. An affordance can be summarised as something that tells you what action you can make. For example on youtube there are a thumbs up, along with a thumbs down icon. These icons represent the possibility of an action, the action being to like or dislike a video. The thumbs up icon is the affordance pointing out the potential we have to take an action of liking, or disliking the video we are watching. Affordances can also be found in everyday life. For example a cabinet door handle is an affordance signifying the possibility of an action. In this case the action potential it signifies is opening, or adversely closing the cabinet door. It is important when thinking about affordances to remember that the action potential of an affordance correlates with the capabilities of the person who could potentially take the action. What I mean by this is to say a newborn was shown the cabinet door handle, they would not yet have the ability to open the cabinet door so this affordance does not afford the newborn to open, or close the cabinet door.
Citations
Nguyen, C. T. (2020). ECHO CHAMBERS AND EPISTEMIC BUBBLES. Episteme, 17(2), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.32