A new study has shown that using social media to influence people to vote actually works:
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.
I wonder if it also works in reverse. Will posting messages to Facebook encourage my friends not to vote? It’s not that I’m a horrible curmudgeon, I’m just concerned about the safety of my friends considering that their chances of dying on the way to their polling place is much greater than the chances of them changing the results of the presidential election. I guess we’ll find out in November.