Last week, the Democratic debate was overshadowed by the previous day’s terror attacks, indicated by a moment of silence before the debate started. Candidates were upset not just because of the attacks, but also due to an abysmal viewership of around 8.5 million users.

Nevertheless, for the first time in political debates, a semi-live feed of tweets appeared at the bottom of the screen for the viewer’s pleasure and it was interesting to watch the Internet react to candidates’ comments.

But the question remains: Is running almost-live Twitter analysis helping get younger people to gain interest in the political process?

Well, it was cool to watch the ‘bust’ and ‘boom’ of the candidates’ popularity on a timely landscape and to see which phrases seemed to spark the most interest. Missing from the data was a deeper look into the peaks of tweets differentiating positive or negative comments.

Was it helpful? It depends on the candidates’ and campaign managers’ goals.

Twitter is helpful for starting discussions between acquaintances, but not for deep conversations between friends or family, or during political debates.

If the primary objective of linking Twitter to a live debate was to increase the number of new followers or popularity for any of the candidates (Bernie Sanders, Hilary Clinton or Martin O’Malley) then the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

For example, Sanders increased his number of new followers by 19,000 after the debate, according to Bloomberg.

While Clinton didn’t lead the way for new followers, she dominated the number of minutes spoken, mentions by other candidates and applause, the Bloomberg analysis reports. Bill Clinton and Donald Trump even made an appearance on the CBS live Twitter feed to provide their two cents.

O’Malley had his popularity on Twitter rise from 4 percent at the beginning of the debate to a whopping 14 percent by the end.

If the goal of linking up with Twitter was to increase awareness on the issues presented in the debates, then this goal was also met. During the debates the average tweets per minute was 11,000, as per the commentators’ announcements.

Going forward, it will be interesting to watch the potential of Twitter functions, like the newly released ‘poll’ button which looks like a slice of pie.

Twitter Polls allow users to ask their audience a single question with two possible answers. As the presidential race heats up, it will be interesting to see how or if this new function of Twitter will be utilized.

No matter what, one thing is clear: Social media is a double-edged sword. Are we ready for a world where politics are geared toward the internet audience?

The political process is no joke, nor should it be a platform for racism, or people who don’t take the process seriously — the trouble with linking the internet to politics is the anonymity of users being allowed to throw mud and hateful remarks to their devious little hearts’ content.

But, the upside to interweaving politics with social media is the large back-and-forth discussion that follows after every debate, whether it be about Trump’s inflammatory remarks, Clinton’s wishy-washy decision making process, Sanders’ unpopular voting decisions or Ben Carson’s complete lack of historical knowledge.

Unfortunately, not many internet discussions open up the can of worms labeled ‘global policy.’

So far, my vote for 2016 hasn’t been locked as none of the candidates want to discuss how they would work in the global arena or how they would work to support global human rights campaigns.

Until Twitter is capable of more detailed discussion (more than 140 characters) it is doubtful that it will be able to produce conversations of substance. If Twitter continues to interfere in politics and lack substance then there is simply no point.

Jorden Wilson is a senior psychology major from Seattle. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of the Office of Student Media.