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Study: Online Social Influence Has the Strongest Effect On Voting Behavior

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-like-what-the-people-I-talk-to-like dept.

sciencehabit writes "Brace yourself for a tidal wave of Facebook campaigning before November's U.S. presidential election. A study of 61 million Facebook users finds that using online social networks to urge people to vote has a much stronger effect on their voting behavior than spamming them with information via television ads or phone calls."

1 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. hmm... by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It could be that a facebook page doesn't interrupt you during dinner, or your favorite movie, or during sex.

    That it doesn't use a melodramatic voice actor to sound all serious about the $TotallyEvilShit that $OtherCandidate does, and basically conflate that not voting for $EndorsedCandidate is a vote for raping babies with wood rasps.

    Seriously. People are losing patience with the mud slinging. A facebook page can be ignored. It doesn't shove itself in your face. It doesn't scream. It doesn't rant. It doesn't turn the volume up 30 additional decibels to blast your brains out.

    Given the substantially fewer sets of clear and present BADs being injected, is it any wonder that people would react more favorably to them?

    Current TV ads are like the $PoliticalParty edit wars on Wikipedia for $CandidateHistory. Look, the ministry of truth bullshit with your truthiness gets old. Say your bit, the shut the fuck up already. If I want to know about your party or your candidate, let me do so on my own. Don't try to control my access to information. Don't try to poison that well. If you do, you expose yourself as dishonest shysters, and I will only want you to go away and stop bothering me.

    I suspect many other americans feel the same way.

    Grow the fuck up, grow a pair, own up, and let us make up our own damn minds.