I’ve taken about a week-long break from Twitter.  It’s a fun and useful social media tool, but it’s also addictive and it can be a huge time waster.  As with anything, it’s best used in moderation.  Instead of tweeting, I’ve been thinking about how social media can be used more effectively in politics.  This is a big issue, and I’ve already tried to take a stab at it in one post about using Twitter to increase bipartisan discussions and debate.

One use of Twitter that I think might be very powerful one day is to create links of contact between public officials and their constituents.  Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) @clairecmc is one of the public officials who uses Twitter better than most.  What is most common to see among Senators or Representatives is staffers basically tweeting the official’s agenda for the day.  But Sen. McCaskill tweets herself and often relays useful information to the public.  Here are a few of her recent tweets:

clairecmc: Just off phone with Gen Shinseki. Most don’t realize that large part of increase in discretionary spending in Pres budget is for veterans.11:28 AM Mar 27th from web

clairecmc: Once again, a large part of the INCREASE in DISCRETIONARY spending in the President’s budget is finally about keeping our word to veterans.12:44 PM Mar 27th from web

clairecmc: And keep in mind that in FY06 a Republican President signed off on 27 Billion in earmarks from the Republican Congress.

I didn’t know these facts.  So if Sen. McCaskill has constituents in Missouri who follow her on Twitter but disagree the level of spending in the budget, they will at least be able to hear her side of the story very easily.  Sen. McCaskill also claims to read all the replies to her tweets, which provides her with useful feedback from her constituents.  Right now she has nearly 19,000 followers, which may be one of the highest numbers of any public official besides @BarackObama.

An online grassroots effort called Tweet Congress is trying to collect signatures to encourage more Senators and Representatives to join Twitter.  You can go to this site, look up your local Rep or Senator, and petition him or her to join Twitter and start communicating with the public using this platform.  Of course, it all depends on how they use Twitter.  Just signing up is not progress in itself.  But overall, this looks like a good project to increase the social media savvy of our government.