Does the Compass Point to Political Enthusiasm?

At first glance, the abundance of political material surfacing on social networking sites such as Facebook might signal that students are more enthused about the upcoming presidential election than ever before.

After all, as of early November, there were nearly 295 politics applications available on Facebook, with thousands of users subscribed to them — some even attracting hundreds of thousands of people. But technology pundits argue that despite the hype, these apps do not necessarily indicate that the student generation is more excited about politics.

Overall, there are more than 8,000 applications on Facebook, tailored to all types of interests, from gaming to dating. The applications give users an opportunity to personalize their online profiles by allowing them to individualize the content on their page. Some applications are interactive — such as an Honesty Box which lets users tell their “friends” what they think of them — while others are static means of self-expression.

Among political applications, over 200,000 people actively use the Causes application, which allows people to raise awareness of and money for non-profit organizations. Hundreds of thousands of users advertise their political beliefs on a scale of liberal to conservative with the Washington Post’s Political Compass application.

But Frank Chi, communications director for College Democrats of America, said many of the programs are just PR stunts created by political campaigns trying to reach students.

“Applications on Facebook needed to happen," he said. "Facebook needed a way to let more people take advantage of the site’s popularity with young people.”

While the applications are certainly plentiful in number, they are not used as much as the initial statistics may suggest, said some pundits, such as Nick O’Neil, founder of allfacebook.com, a blog devoted to following the evolution of Facebook.

“Just about 2 percent of all applications are political," he said. "Among these 2 percent of applications, most people are not even actively contributing.”

Among Facebook’s 25 most-used applications, only one — Causes — has a political focus. Most political applications have fewer than 200 active users, who are people who contribute to the application by either posting on the application’s homepage or using it daily on their profile page.

Even applications that have no campaign affiliation are often little-used. Cornell University alum Eliot York created an application called Vote on the Book, which allows users to vote for a candidate. After the primaries, York said he will donate money to campaigns in proportion to the votes received.

The money York donates comes from ad revenues, which are generated by users clicking on the advertisement. So the more clicks on ads, the more money York has to donate.

But while several thousand people are subscribed to his application, Vote on the Book has reaped fewer than $1,000 in advertising revenues. If the profits stay at this pace, he said will only be able to donate a couple hundred dollars to each candidate.

York also said applications are geared to a very specific group of people. The people who participate on these Web sites appear to be people with non-mainstream political sentiments, he said.

“Although Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are leading the board, I think that it is pretty obvious that these two guys probably aren’t going to win the real election and that they definitely aren’t the most popular candidates in reality. There must be a very different population of people who frequent the Internet and that’s why you see a lot of people supporting these guys,” York said.

All the online activity probably will not be enough to change what the average voter thinks of the candidates, he said. But he could see "fringe candidates" gaining more momentum on the heels of online support.

But because the Internet allows people to filter what information they receive, many people can avoid political discussion entirely. For this reason, some said they wonder if students may be even less interested in politics than before.

With television, viewers have to spend time watching programming to get to the news they are interested in, while online media lets viewers choose what to watch.

“This means that you have to watch some political coverage to get what you want,” O’Neil said. “But now, online communities let you focus on what you want, so you can entirely avoid politics,” he said.

Even if Facebook applications and other online outlets say little about any increase in student involvement this election, Chi said students are definitely more politically involved now.

“In 2000, 42 percent of young people voted," he said. "In 2004, 52 percent voted. By 2008, there will probably be much more. People feel like there needs to be a change and [they] care about the issues at hand."

Looking towards the future, the popularity of political applications or user-created groups could take off once less technologically-savvy people begin to use applications in general, O'Neil said.