The Problem with Affordance

Abstract

This article reviews the concept of ‘affordance’, a term widely used in the literature on learning and technology to try and explain the properties technologies have. It is argued that the concept has drifted so far from its origins that it is now too ambiguous to be analytically valuable. In addition, it is suggested that its origins in ecological perception – where relatively primitive claims are made at the level of species about animal-object relationships, framed in an evolutionary timescale – have little direct relevance to the moment-to-moment interactions of an individual using a specific artefact. Because of this, it is proposed than an alternative way of talking about technology use is required. A stylistic analysis of technologies, drawing on Bakhtin's analysis of novels, is outlined as one potential alternative.