Politics + Facebook + Twitter = ???
The past few weeks I’ve really enjoyed the advantages of being “plugged in” online — specifically with regards to how it’s influencing my opinion on the political race for president. Throughout Facebook, MySpace and Twitter my social network of friends are loudly voicing their opinions. Did I mention LOUDLY? It’s exciting to watch to the speeches on TV while being plugged into Twitter and Facebook on my cell phone. I’m getting real-time feedback as it happens. It makes me laugh, think twice about specific topics and sometimes — it even makes me angry.
Since my friends are constantly posting to Facebook and Twitter I’ve been able to “paint a picture” if you will, of each of the different opinions my individual friends have. Because of that anonymity of the Internet, friends who usually don’t talk politics have a domain in which they can are freely expressing their thought. Furthermore, not all of my friends have I met personally face-to-face. It’s exciting to learn “that much more” about the thoughts of those friends whom my interaction has only been conducted online.
On a more philosophical note, I truly believe this election in general is extremely refreshing! You can’t deny that the Millennial generation has more choices in life than any other generation than ever before. Think about it — there are more options than ever; music, books, food, technology and schools — and I truly believe this paradigm has influenced politics. What I mean by that is, since there are more choices available in life, several of my friends are also finding themselves in a bipartisan position about politics. It’s interesting to see this shift happen, and now people are comfortable with freely voting for who they truly believe can this great country the best. Furthermore, its arguably socially acceptable to jump party lines.
Regardless of where you stand, it’s going to be an exciting race — one of which I’m truly enjoying learning, educating and watching it all unfold.
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Twitter has been a blast these past few weeks during the convention. Watching the speech and “live Twittering” comments Mystery Science Theatre 3000-style with my e-friends has almost made the whole political season bearable…and (as you eloquently stated) enlightening.
I’m excited for the debates to start — when specific issues are brought up, Twitter is the perfect place to express real-time opinions as it happens.
What do you think about applying open source theory to politics and public business?
Lance, I’ll be honest here — while I completely get “open source” and it’s concept in regards to software, I don’t think I enough about politics and the idea of “open source politics” or its structure to give you confident response.
If you’re asking that if people should be more open minded to being bipartisan. I think that is already happening with the Millennial generation (like I mention in this blog post).
With the election in hindsight, the prevalence of political ideas on Facebook of people I know really did influence my thoughts. In fact, it drove me mad. The excitement of what was a historic election was dampened by bombardment of voices from people who I know knew nothing about politics. Call me cynical, but every Facebook status that read “We Believe: Obama” made me feel that Obama was uncomfortably trendy. I would have voted for him, but for me the bandwagon, Internet support that helped him win the election lost my vote.