The term affordance was introduced by James J. Gibson (1977). An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. These “action possiblities” are objectively measurable and independent of the individual, but always in relation to the actor and therefore a product of an interaction between the environment/object and the individual.
Explanation of affordances by Don Norman:
Next, an evaluation of what kind of social, cognitive and emotional affordances the interaction between students and blogs have.
The social affordances are perhaps the most obvious. You socialize with other students/experts thgough following their blogs and commenting (also, a blog post can spark a conversation in real-life). Blogs can also be used to share all kinds of social media.
By presenting the student with an easy to use personal learning environment, the blog can offer cognitive affordances such as reflecting on ones studies and learning process and facilitating deeper learning by writing posts and reading other peoples opinions.
The social and cognitive affordances are connected with the emotional affordances of a blog. The social aspects can have a motivational effect on the individual as he knows others will be reading his blog, and he can also get inspired by others. Of course, also the reverse in possible in case you are not comfortable with sharing your works with others. The cognitive affordances of a blog can also have a motivational effect on students who feel comfortable using a blog. On the other hand, some students might see keeping a blog as tedious work and it might have a negative emotional effect.
Synapsifier in the Sky 
Hi there,
I hope you can read my comments from now on.
Anyways, interesting post about affordances. I was not aware it could be looked at this way. I always tend to link the term ‘afford’ with having money to buy something. Living and learning.
I look forward to your future posts.
Keep up the good work.