No matter where you stand in the current presidential election, social media has undoubtedly altered the 2016 political climate. Whether it’s Facebook live streaming the debates, or Twitter channeling the relentless presidential banter, social media has become a fully integrated part of the voting process this election season.

In today’s digital age, social media has become the platform by which people of all ages receive their news. Reporters actually seek out information from popular social media hubs as inspiration for stories and to provide their readers with comment from Trump and Clinton. According to a new survey conducted by Pew Research Center, “44 percent of U.S. adults learned about the presidential election from a social networking site.”

Not only is this form of news consumption faster, but it’s also more easily accessible to constituents than other traditional media outlets. However, just because a story is prevalent in the news, doesn’t make the information credible.

While news media may evoke an emotional, gut reaction among voters, a large majority of Americans are using these social media sound bites and conversations as their primary voting influencers.

What’s even more alarming is that some of this information may actually be entirely automated. In fact, more than 1/3 of pro-Trump and 1/5 of pro-Clinton tweets produced during this election have come from online Twitter bots. This self-generating software can tweet, retweet, follow other accounts, and even respond to tweets.

So how is this affecting voter judgement and political opinion as a whole?

Those who are not seasoned in the world of politics, are using information from these automated accounts coupled with other social media squabbles to gage how they will vote during this election cycle. This has consequentially created a massive divide in political opinion among voters that’s ripping the country in half.

However, regardless of split viewpoints concerning the presidential candidates, the public may be feeling like the over-involvement of social media is getting out of hand. Pew Research Center also reported that, “More than one-third of social media users are worn out by the amount of political content they encounter, and more than half describe their online interactions with those they disagree with politically as stressful and frustrating.” Read more

As the election comes to an longly anticipated end, we will see how social media has affected American voter behavior in the polls, but will it result in a leader who’s fit to run the country?