I mostly use LinkedIn when I’m looking for a job. When I open it, the page shows me jobs, people, and companies that are close to what I already look at. I never really thought about why until this week’s reading.
Bucher and Helmond (2018) explain that affordances are about what a design makes people think they can do. They mention and talk about what the Norman’s idea that good design should make the possible actions visible to the user. But on social media, not everything is visible. Bucher and Helmond say that algorithms can act as hidden affordances, shaping what we see without us noticing the influence.
For me, recommendations are the biggest example. Bucher and Helmond also say that platforms personalize what each user sees, and that our clicks and likes feed back into the system. That means the more I engage with tech jobs and tech people, the more LinkedIn shows me the same thing. I’d guess about 80 to 90 percent of my connections are in computer science or tech, so my network already looks pretty narrow.
What does this keep out of view? People in other fields who could help me see my career in a new way. I wouldn’t even know they exist unless I went looking, because the feed doesn’t show them to me.
I haven’t tried changing this yet, but I want to.
How much control do we really have over our PLN if platforms are deciding who to recommend to us? Is this good for us, or should we be figuring out how to change this?