How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?
The all important question of this course, but I’ll unpack this later.
I probably have to remove all my preexisting connotations of ‘affordances’. The capitalism that we’ve been brainwashed by makes me think of money—what can I afford with the x amount of money I have? (Spoiler: Not a whole lot.)
Though, perhaps it’s kind of the same concept. With the utilities that Instagram has, what can it afford its users?
Even if I don’t use it everyday, I’m aware that Instagram affords taking pictures & videos, uploading said pictures & videos, direct messaging, creating stories, commenting, liking, tagging, geotagging, following.
Though Instagram itself provide these services, I have a tendency to not use them all. I upload to Instagram irregularly; 10 posts over the course of two to three years, despite the fact that I capture and edit images with the intent on posting them, but I just… don’t.
In terms of what I understand constraints to be, one of the web version of Instagram’s constraint is not allowing users to upload—that appears to be mobile app only function.
I’m not sure if this makes it easier or more difficult for me to maintain my account; I remember wanting to upload through the browser as I had preferred to edit my images using Photoshop, but found myself put off by the effort required to find a way to make the images available to my phone as well (my Dropbox has expired, sue me). So, I browsed for a photo-editing app—Snapseed and VSCO. At least VSCO provides free and customisable filters (which, to me, are superior to Instagram’s filters).
So how does Instagram affect the way photos and videos are authored, published and distributed in the network?
I think it gives the layman the ability to publish images online. I am in no way a professional; I use my phone to take photos and my knowledge of editing has come from playing around with Photoshop as a hobby and using Google. My images aren’t quality—I don’t have a DSLR (my dad does, and the only thing stopping me from using it is fear of breaking it and incurring my dad’s wrath. So, I’ll stick to my phone for now) and I can’t be bothered using Photoshop.
With Instagram in mind, I’ll try to related it with Donald Norman’s “Affordance, Conventions and Design (Part 2)”, where he states ‘affordances reflect the possible relationships among actors and objects: they are properties of the world. Conventions, on the other hand, are arbitrary, artificial and learned’ (Norman 1999, Concluding Summary para 5).
In this case, Instagram affords liking an image, just like every other social app, right? So, has Instagram cultivated a new convention in which users have learned that double-tapping an image will “like” it? Perhaps it’s my lack of expansion of social apps, but I haven’t come across another app where double-tapping allows for liking—even Facebook, despite its similarity to Instagram—relies on the tried and true thumbs up button to like a status.
In this scenario where Instagram is hypothetically the only app (because I’m still not certain) that offers double-tapping, could it really be considered a convention? Because Norman then clarifies that ‘designers can invent new real and perceived affordances, but they cannot so readily change established social conventions’ (Norman 1999, Concluding Summary para 5).
So is it possible that Instagram has changed the conventions around liking an image? Or am I just confused because I signed up late?
References
Norman, D 1999, Affordance, Conventions and Design (Part 2), Nielson Norman Group, viewed 3 August 2018, <https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordance_conv.html>.