Recently, I asked students in my Web communications class to post a blog in response to the articles  “The Selling of a President,” by Joe McGinniss, from Parade magazine, and “Coakley v Brown: The Social Media Divide May Decide Election,” from the Huffington Post–pieces dealing with social media and political discourse.

Based on their previous blog entries, I anticipated a lukewarm response. While their writing, throughout the semester, had been consistently thoughtful, I rarely saw any emotional investment. Now, to my surprise, they wrote passionately about their frustrations with politics, the ways social media had nudged and encouraged them to engage in the political world.

Many older folks believe young people to be indifferent to politics. Young adults had come out in droves in support of Barack Obama, a supposed anomaly their elders chalked up to youth, liberal naiveté, fan-like worship of a handsome, electrifying candidate. Surely, the stunning turnout had been induced by a Facebook-inspired mob mentality, a desire to conform or be cool, an inner drive swept into action by Obama’s tsunami-like Internet marketing campaign.

My students’ responses, though an admittedly small, anecdotal sampling, are telling. Turns out, while young people do, indeed, look to Facebook for current news and information, for the most part network affiliations, the urgings of friends, provide insufficient motivation for them to engage politically, never mind to get out and vote. Nor do young adults necessarily vote in self-interest. No, it’s about respect. A candidate who specifically addresses them, who listens—a candidate who takes them seriously—earns their devotion. By addressing young adults through a media they understood and claimed as their own, Barack Obama told young people you matter. I care.

Not so different, really, from the way the rest of us—parents, teachers, coaches, mentors—ought to think of them and behave.