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A Facebook user enters her password in a 2010 file photo. (SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)

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Social networking sites are playing a larger role in how Americans get involved in politics and civic affairs.

A new study from the Pew Research Center showed that nearly 40 percent of Americans now engage in political activity on a social network, and this online activity often mobilizes individuals to become involved offline as well.

Download and read the Pew report.

The trend has already reshaped how the game of politics is being played.

"We want to spend every waking moment talking to political advertisers about how they can use Twitter to win," Peter Greenberger, Twitter's head of political advertising sales and the executive who established Google Inc.'s political advertising arm in 2007, told the Wall Street Journal in November.

But as the number of people participating in political activity online steadily increases, the study found that there continues to be a huge gap between the poor and financially well-off in terms of access to the Internet and ability to participate in civic life a gap that many believed would change as the Internet became more prominent.

According to a news release from Pew, the study examined both online and offline political engagement and paid special attention to the role of social networking sites in people's political activities.

The major findings included:

Read the rest here:
When going online becomes political