This is the first British general-election in the social-media age, meaning that it is influenced by Facebook and Twitter. Thousands of people, especially first-time voters, were watching the debates on two screens: the TV screen as well as their mobile phone or computer, which they use to monitor and respond on Twitter and Facebook as well as give instant reactions to the candidates' appearance, words and policies. The @Tweetminster account – which describes itself as "a media utility that connects you to the politicians, commentators, and news that shape U.K. politics" – says that in the third debate there were 154,342 tweets tagged "#leadersdebate," coming at 26.77 tweets a second, spread among 33,095 people. This doesn't include many hundreds – perhaps thousands – of others who didn't use the tag. (Some of them, such as @MTuckerNo10 – user name Malcolm Tucker – being imaginary.) Facebook was busy as well -- the social network has dozens of groups relating to the parties, such as the "Vandalised Conservative Billboards" group (123,000 members), the Conservatives' own (74,500 members), and the Liberal Democrats (74,000 members). As in the outside polls, the Labor party trails (33,000). After the TV debates, Facebook polls proclaimed Clegg the "winner" in a self-selecting sample of 10,000 users. Echo Research, which carries out "reputation analysis" for companies and organizations, found that while people think that talking in the pub is more influential (32%) than social media (19%), the latter is having a significant impact, especially among Liberal Democrat voters. Social media rank particularly highly among 18- to 24-year-olds (42%). The Internet is playing a growing role according to Echo Research, which found that almost half of the population has gone online for information about the parties and candidates. "Online shows the greatest increase as a source of information about the elections, ahead of all other sources, particularly for men," says Sandra Macleod, its group chief executive. Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC's technology and industrial correspondent, who has been its "digital election-correspondent" during the campaign, warns: "We may get a distorted view [via social media and especially Twitter] because people who engage with it are in general liberal-minded people." Macleod of Echo Research says: "As with the introduction of televised debates in this country, social media have now become an essential weapon in the battle for people's hearts, minds and votes. Those who ignore it or are slow to engage will truly be left behind." Paul Mason, BBC’s economics editor, put forward his own thoughts on Twitter's effect on the election, noting that it gives potentially perfect real-time feedback to any political event (through real-time searching). His conclusion: it "has the potential to partially or completely neutralize the ability of the corporate media to transmit the dominant ideology." One element is still missing, generally, from Facebook and Twitter: geolocation. The problem for parties is that voter tweets and Facebook pages don't generally give much detail about where they live, and so whether it's worth trying to persuade them. Cellan-Jones puts it simply: "I said [to my editors] that 'this is the one campaign where it might have a specific role, where we can concentrate on it specifically. Next time it will just be part of every political correspondent's job.'" By the next election, social media will be woven into daily life – and not just general polls, but indicators of how constituencies' mood is changing will be provided.

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