Jessica Puente

If you logged in to Facebook or Twitter at all yesterday, you know the health care law was upheld.

Maybe you don’t follow any news organizations and maybe you care more about peanut butter than you do politics but someone you know does care and probably posted about it so now you know.

After work yesterday I was taking a walk and discussing the news with a friend. (I know, it was very bold to take a walk in this heat.) We were laughing about all the people who posted they were moving to Canada because of the decision. Oh irony.

But this had me thinking, has any other supreme court decision in the last ten years received this much public attention?

Think about it.

The Pew Research Center did a poll in July 2010 where they asked citizens to name the Chief Justice of the United States. Only 28% got it right. 53% didn’t know and 4% thought it was Harry Reid.

Just two years ago the majority of Americans didn’t even know who John Roberts was and yesterday, millions not only knew who he was but could quote him in a recent supreme court decision.

So this leads me to think, ” Is social media making us smarter?” Based on the massive amount of people posting about moving to Canada I would lean toward no. But at the very least we are more informed, which is progress.

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights,” Thomas Jefferson quote that sums it up for me.