The Application of Affordance Theory in Understanding Social Media Users' Perception of Algorithms

Social media algorithms have been used by different social media platforms to sort and filter content on their main feeds according to their predetermined rules. Most content that social media users see on platforms is chosen by their algorithms, and thus social media algorithms play a crucial role in structuring our online experience. However, due to the opacity of social media algorithms, our understanding of platforms is limited, and users have different perceptions and attitudes toward algorithmic decision-making on social media.

Although a few scholars have examined how social media users make sense of and engage with algorithms based on different concepts and theories, we still do not have a clear concept or theoretical framework to understand how social media users have different perceptions of social media algorithms. Thus, this paper proposes how affordance theory can be applied in understanding user interaction with social media algorithms.