Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 3 Feb 2012 13:43:33 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120202/02405117634/young-people-followed-sopa-news-more-than-election-news.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120202/02405117634/young-people-followed-sopa-news-more-than-election-news.shtml was the most followed story for people under 30 -- even more than news about the Presidential election. That's probably because SOPA/PIPA had much more of a likelihood of impacting their daily lives. Either way, it's amazing to see politicians and SOPA/PIPA supporters still think that this was just a "vocal minority" complaining about the bill. Their ridiculously bad miscalculation in introducing ridiculously bad bills has now awakened a very large percentage of young people to these issues, in a way that won't just go away. Amazingly, it wasn't just people aged 20 to 30 who took an interest. The research showed that there was interest all the way down to the K-12 set as well.

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]]> more-likely-to-impact-them http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120202/02405117634 Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:18:17 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/00395613436/study-suggests-that-internet-makes-youth-more-engaged-citizens.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110311/00395613436/study-suggests-that-internet-makes-youth-more-engaged-citizens.shtml politicize people who were formerly not all that interested in politics, Shocklee points us to news of a recent study that has found, indeed, that high school students who use the internet to research key interests "were more likely to become involved in 'civic and political issues.'" And it appears that this greater involvement goes beyond just posting about it online, but really becoming more involved in certain causes. This seems to counter the claims of some that online interest in civil and political issues is more just people screaming in front of their computers. It actually does seem to have a real impact.

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]]> that's-a-good-thing,-right? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110311/00395613436