On Nov. 4, television sets blared, radios boomed and the American public awaited the results of who would be the next president of the United States of America.

When it was officially announced that Sen. Barack Obama was the president-elect, media exploded with expert views, interviews, in-depth looks at the campaign and the speeches of both Obama and his opponent in the race, Sen. John McCain.

While television and radio broadcasted the news, another source of media overflowed with information about the election – the Internet.

While most of us weren’t old enough to vote in the last presidential election, the coming-of-age technology of the Internet has informed thousands of young adults on the candidates and their views.

With one of the largest voter turnouts for 18 to 24 year olds in history, our vote definitely helped put Obama into the president-elect seat.

Would this election have been different if we weren’t a generation of tech-savvy individuals?

Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to find out about a candidate, they would have to do much research to get trusted information.

Today, we can find out who does Sarah Palin’s makeup in a matter of seconds with the help of Google.

As the YouTube generation, a good chunk of political messages targeted at us plunged through the Internet into student laptops.

One particular Web site has been a hub of influencing the young vote – Facebook.com.

According to the Web site, Facebook maintains an 85 percent market share of all 4-year U.S. universities. Not only in America, but this international site is the most trafficked social media site in the world.

On the Web site, students can discuss classes, create invitations to parties and declare their political beliefs to the world.

Political messages have pushed the wires of this social hub from advertisements and group invitations to virtual gifts of candidate propaganda and candidate profiles urging students to get out the vote.

Many of the posted links on Facebook centered on the election, from the beginning presidential debates to “Saturday Night Live” clips.

Just minutes after major news stations began announcing that Obama had enough electoral votes to be elected, status updates refreshed with a gigantic amount of political banter.

“Mary Smith is proud to be an American.”

“John Doe is excited for the future.”

“Joe Brown can’t wait for Jan. 20!”

While some statuses were mild and optimistic about the election, others were very hostile and angry.

“Susie Q is screwed for the next four years.”

“Jack Jones is glad that Sarah Palin can go back to her porch in Alaska and stay away from the White House.”

“Sally Jean is well, it can’t get any worse, right?”

When the average students check their Facebook profiles more often than they check their e-mail, these political messages are being exposed at quite an impressive rate.

Should we thank the public for their civic duty of voting? Or should we thank Facebook?