With the Nov. 7 midterm elections approaching and with the popularity of youth-oriented Web sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.com, politicians are attempting to appeal to young voters through these electronic means.

While generation Y makes up one-quarter of the U.S. electorate, they usually participate in low numbers, which has led politicians to garner support from this under-utilized age group.

At first glance, the combination of youth-oriented Web sites and political information would seem to be a favorable match, since young people may feel as though less attention is being paid to their issues, in favor of larger issues facing older voters.

It will also be possible to inform young voters of alternative candidates who they may not have known about. Or, it may allow this youth voting bloc to become more familiar with the positions of politicians they are familiar with, so they will be able to make a decision to either support them or not.

However, the negative side to this equation is that voters may accept only the information they see on Facebook or MySpace and accept it at face value without considering all sides of the issue.

This can be more dangerous, because, as John F. Kennedy said, "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all," and the partial ignorance of a voter might be due to an incomplete presentation of information on Facebook or MySpace.

So it is important to bear in mind that while these new tactics to interest young voters may work to pique their interest, it is still the responsibility of the voters themselves to read as much material on the election as possible in order to become informed.

In addition, the short term popular nature of these Web sites must also be taken into consideration before this method of attracting voters is regarded as viable. Politicians recruiting student voters and building interest through Facebook and MySpace are applying a short-term solution to a problem of apathy that will only be solved in the long term.

Until Generation Y is truly engaged by the current political dialogue, information passed through Web sites will remain at best a trickle of information that will not quench the desire for knowledge.