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It’s almost over.
Soon, we’ll finally make several important political decisions, including who will be tasked with running the country for the next four years.
Decisions that may or may not be shaped by our Internet addiction.
“You didn’t build that.” The 47 percent. Big Bird. Binders full of women. Romnesia. Horses and bayonets.
Issues? Sure, we’re talking about them—but in easily digestible bits that make yesterday’s sound bites seem like fusty old-fashioned political commentary.
When it comes to the 2012 election season, it’s a meme, meme, meme, meme world—a social media-fueled race propelled by endless Facebook posts, Twitter blasts and Tumblr feeds.
Romney’s “binders full of women” comment during the October 16 debate, for example, had its own Facebook page (with nearly 100,000 “likes") and Tumblr feed before the televised showdown was even over.
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Certainly, it’s funny and entertaining and it serves, inarguably, to draw more people into the conversation. A new study released by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, for example, shows that 66 percent of all social-media users “have employed the platforms to post their thoughts about civic and political issues.”
And such users, the study reveals, tend to skew younger and female with politically liberal or ideological viewpoints.
How that actually breaks down when it comes to cold, hard votes, however, won’t be known until at November 6 at the very soonest.
Until then, we’ll continue to share, repost and like. But it’s almost time to disconnect from the fray and move beyond the memes.
It’s almost, finally, time to vote. And for now at least, there’s no app for that.