Twitter ‘could be vital tool in general election’, The Guardian, March 18, 2015
The study included 3,000 people. “Research from social media platform says 45% of users aged 18-34 became interested in a cause they learned about through the site.. . . One in three 18-34 year old users had changed their vote from one party to another, 47% had reconsidered their views on a specific issue based on what they’d seen on the site.” It helps that this research took place in the U.K., where Twitter’s global head of news, government and elections, Adam Sharp, said “more than three-quarters [78%] of [Members of Parliament] already on the platform, along with every major news outlet and political party in the country, we know Twitter is where the live conversation about the election is happening.” Amusingly, “44% said they thought Twitter provided genuinely unbiased coverage.”
Via @GuardianTech @fperraudin

Contrast with this story:

Lindsey Graham Says He Has Never Sent An Email, The Huffington Post, March 8, 2015
“Discussing the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton using her personal email account for government business, a top Senate Republican revealed that he has never sent an email in his life. ‘I don’t email,’ Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said. ‘You can have every email I’ve ever sent. I’ve never sent one.’”
Via @HuffPostPol @ArthurDelaneyHP

First things first: in 2015, one of the only two people representing the State of South Carolina has never sent an e-mail. I’m willing to bet that at least 50% of the population of South Carolina has sent an e-mail. This isn’t a matter of driving a different car or vacationing different places, this is more like using running water when half of your State does not. How can Senator Graham possibly represent his constituents if he doesn’t even live in the same world they do??

Now we look at what these two stories mean together: that apparently the U.K. is a crazy, futuristic, high-tech world where 78% of the peoples’ representatives are on Twitter, while the United States has elected representatives from the Stone Age. Twitter may not be the best course of communication, but given the choice between politicians who use Twitter, politicians who have never sent an e-mail, or politicians who are super secretive about sending e-mail, I begrudgingly choose the tweeting politicians.