Last week in the morning on my way to the office I read an article in Joe Belanger‘s column on the London Free Press website. The article titled Twitted away, but are real voters actually tweeting? back? not only grabbed my attention but also others here in the community as well. Jeff and Lindsay also wrote an article titled Your Social Media Might Be Problematic.

I also planned on commenting on the article earlier that morning, however the commenting was turned off so I could not. The commenting was turned on later that morning after I instigated a small disruption in everyone’s day on Twitter … ironic right?

After reading the article a couple of questions and thoughts came to mind.

  • Are the “unsophisticated” young individuals who can now vote really going to vote?
  • Do those who use Twitter not know of the 140 character limit? Because if not, there is a problem on many levels.
  • Have you [Joe] or anyone else learned about the new Bill C-32 and the Twitter conversations around it (referring specifically to tweets by Heritage Minister James Moore)
  • Traditional media may do a favor to politicians, but what about it’s readers – the citizens who are voting?

The average unsophisticated young individual who is eligible to vote according to Joe would probably say something like this in response to a politician following him or her or trying to spark a conversation on Twitter:

“OMG! WT(heck)! Who r u?”

… and Joe is probably correct about this. This however this should lead anyone to ask a couple of additional questions such as:

  • Is this individual really going to vote?
  • Why would a young individual or anyone for that fact of the matter, respond to someone like a politician with such a remark?

With a response like this, I immediately assume that the individual is most likely not going to be voting. Why? It is obvious that this individual does not know who the various politicians are which simply leads to the reasoning that this individual does not care and is not interested in politics. If the individual does know who the politicians are and or that the politician who is trying to spark a conversation and gain a contact, a voter, the level of critical thinking on the behalf of this “unsophisticated” voter appears to be a little lower then maybe it should be.

My beliefs (and probably many of others) are simply this and which can most likely can be proven to be true by simply walking into any high school or talking to almost anyone within two years of their high school graduation which are now young voters. Very few of these individuals from my perspective and observations when I attended high school and even to this day through college do not care about such technologies like Twitter; Facebook on the other hand – yes! Why do I say this? Well it is because the majority of these students, young voters, do not understand the meaning and overall benefits of using Twitter, its capabilities for user’s to micro blog and connection engagement tool. Facebook provides these young individuals with more features such as posting photos, videos, etc.

Joe also raised the argument that there is only a 140 character limit available when sending a Tweet on Twitter. If those who are using Twitter to engage in meaningful conversations do not know of the 140 character limit – in my opinion there are problems on many different levels. Am I wrong to say this? Maybe. But those who do engage in meaningful conversations exceeding 140 character limits on Twitter typically know how to appropriately shorten their Tweet to send it in 140 characters and still be meaningful. OR, these users typically know to continuously send numerous Tweets repeatedly to get the entire message sent.

Just recently, there has been a very particular Twitter conversation between Heritage Minister James Moore and Cory Doctorow. David Eaves just recently wrote an article focused around this conversation and the Minister’s statement of “radical extremists”. The article is titled, “Minister Moore and the myth of Market Forces. For this article, David has tracked the above mentioned conversation and placed it into a visual display which can be located here. You should read it – it’s interesting. Aside from just this conversation, Minister Moore also made Tweets to others claiming he did not say something which he had and which was recorded and placed online. Is it the young voters who made a mistake here? In my opinion no – but it did benefit us, the voters, and not the politicians so much.

Within the article that Joe had written – there is a mention that traditional media does politicians a favor by filtering and censoring what politicians say and do. I agree with this statement it does help the politicians. However, what about the citizens? The voters? All information should be provided in a non-filtered and non-censored way. Unfortunately – traditional media does not do this very well and social media does it better.

Finally, I agree that traditional media is still needed within the world today for elections to fill the void and connect with those voters where social media doesn’t yet.

Please note that this article is my opinion. I am not a social media expert nor am I claiming to be. I am also not a political junkie. However, I am a young voter who uses social media as a form of contact and a way to engage with others throughout the community.