Social Media, The Election and Depersonalization

While I was watching the second presidential debate in the DUC, right next to the screen that was showing the debate there was a smaller screen that showed a live twitter feed of people commenting on the debate.  To me, this was a perfect representation of the way that social media has completely integrated itself into the lives of Americans- specifically within the political arena.  My own Twitter and Facebook feeds were also full of up to the second commentary on the debates- some more professional than others.  On one hand, President Obama’s twitter feed was posting updates approximately every minute.  This is a perfect example of the depersonalization that social media networks have caused (I'll also preface this by saying that social media has provided people with an amazing way to engage with the political arena).  It is clear that Obama’s twitter is not actually written by Obama.  Yet, people interact with the account and follow it as a way of becoming closer to the President.  In the past, the only way people heard and related to the president was through ‘direct’ television or radio contact.  Now that other people control what messages the internet community hears we no longer have this ‘direct’ interaction.  Furthermore, for people who may not have the time/patience/political interest, they may rely on the instantaneous social media network to interact with candidates and gather the information they use to inform their votes and general knowledge.  This presents another act of depersonalization- if someone goes on social media- Twitter in particular and looks up a term such as ‘debate’, or clicks on one of the trending topics, they can read posts from anonymous people across the globe.  When interpretations of the debates once might have been discussed around the dinner table with family or neighbors, the internet has created a virtual community where you are getting and interpreting news from random people who you will likely never meet or be able to have extended conversations with in person.  Finally, instead of having conversations with others (which one can do via social media), social media has made it easy to depersonalize interactions online by creating 'like' buttons.  When one of my Facebook friends made a politically relevant comment, rather than commenting on it, within minutes, 9 people 'liked' it while 0 people commented.  So yes, I did speak with my friends about the debate afterwards, however throughout the debate itself, I and many others were online using social media to further the interactions with the political world.