As time progresses, social media becomes a greater part of one’s life. At times, people spend a longer time on social media instead of having a face-to-face conversation. The presidential candidates take advantage of social media in order to extend their campaigns to attract a variety of age groups. Popularity of social media has even taken over the traditional press. This is a result of the traditional news media losing the trust of the public.

Because of this lost trust in the traditional corporate media, we turn to social media for more accurate information. In addition, political candidates don’t have to fear about some of their messages not getting across through the corporate-controlled media because many young Americans get informed through social media.

According to an article in Truthout, a survey done by the Media Insight Project shows that only six percent of Americans “say they have great confidence in the press.” This is due to the the fact that the press has turned out to be a corporate-controlled media. It’s because of this that there is the need to find out the information yourself rather than through a published news article that are at times very exaggerated. According to the same source, “there was a ‘Bernie blackout’ in traditional corporate media for the first six months of Bernie’s campaign,” which disappointed many of Sander’s supporters. This shows the bias that can take place in the traditional press.

In order to reach millennials, the candidates try to take advantage of social media. Because social media such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are so popular, candidates have turned to these platforms to gain support. According to Huffington Post, Hilary Clinton even uses Snapchat to gain more support and was also one of the two first candidates to announce her campaign on Snapchat.

This change of being heavily reliable on social media can be good and bad for the society. For instance, the person that gains the most attention through social media may in reality not be the best candidate, but this will definitely help them during the elections.

Social media is also a small window to learn about candidates and it will not be useful to just judge them though that. In addition, the good side that comes out of using social media is the attention that it brings to important events such as the elections and helps to involve more people.

There is no doubt that social media will play a significant role on this year’s elections, as many young Americans turn away from the traditional press and are more engaged in social media. In addition, according to Huffington Post, “41 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 25 had participated in some kind of political discussion or activity online.” Out of these people, there is a more likely chance that they will realize who they want to vote for. Their decision can also be due to the fact as to which candidate will spend more money or more time connecting with the public on social media which, if presented the right way, will develop greater support for them.

It is beneficial that young Americans can look at their presidential candidates through social media because it can make them more interested about the elections taking place in their country. It will help them gain a better understanding of who to vote for rather than just voting for a random candidate primarily because many of those people don’t spend the time to read the traditional news press, and even if they do, they don’t have much trust for what’s written in the news articles.