Social Media Changes Politics in Numerous Ways; Is This a Positive or Negative Change?

Social Media has had an affect on every aspect in our lives; but, have we ever thought of the affects it's had on Politics? Just from the presidential election in 2008 to the one in 2012, users of social media talking about the election went up a shocking amount.

In 2008, there were 1.5 million election related tweets-- in 2012 there were 31 million.

Not only is social media changing the way people act and react online, but it is changing their overall behavior as well. In other words, "social media is not a change in technology, it is a change in how people communicate."

Whereas hard copies of news articles in the past have been forgotten about, nobody ever seems to forget what we see on social media. It's quite possible that the reason for this is because of how easy it is to screenshot online sites.

When someone says something remarkable, nobody will forget about it.

Bill Clinton, being the "most popular" ex-president, probably wouldn't have been so popular had social media been around during his time. Scandals constantly hovered around him which would have definitely been exposed during the time of his election.

So, my question is: Is social media a good thing for presidential elections? Will we be able to find out more about our possible presidents than we would never know otherwise? Stay tuned in the next couple years and we'll surely see how it all pans out!