Pinterest- Affordances and Constraints

The affordances of using Pinterest is that it allows you to have your own pin board, therefore you can pin anything to your own pin board e.g. the image above shows somebody has created a pin board about hair this allows them to pin pictures that they find pretty or that they would like to do to their own or somebody else's hair. You have the ability to pin anything, if you were interested in cooking then you could pin recipes that you could try out. It is also useful as you can go back to them whenever you want instead of spending hours scrolling through Google to find what you are looking for. It also allows users to pin things that they like from other peoples board to their own board, you also have the ability to follow other peoples board which keeps you updated if you like a certain thing that they have pinned.  You can also leave comments so the user can see your opinion.

Constraints of Pinterest are that there is no face to face communication and you could hide behind your personal profile which might not be such a bad thing if you want to keep your identity hidden for various reasons. In my opinion there aren't many constraints of pinterest, even though you can comment many people rarely do and many comments just say "nice" or "what a great idea" it is very rare that you would ever come across an offensive comment. Pinterest is different to other social media sites as it is more focused on your interests, not because you want to communicate with your friends as you cant talk to people on pinterest.

I think the audience is from teenagers and upwards as it would be too hard for someone younger than a teenager as they wouldn't have enough time or have enough interests to have their own pinboard. Pinterest is easy to use and a great way to keep your ideas or interests organised in one place.