I am not a political person. For whatever reason, my brain is not programmed to particularly care about politics. I would much rather spend my time on TMZ reading about the tragic Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez break-up instead of on The New York Times finding out what the politicians think about the new legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington.

But that’s just me. That’s how I like to go about my life. There shouldn’t be any problem with how I think. I recognize that other people – the majority of people in the country, actually – do follow politics and enjoy being informed about what’s going on in our political world. I think that’s great, and it’s definitely something the U.S. needs when some of the important decisions of our country depend on its people.

One such decision is the big one to make every four years: who will the people choose to lead our country? Election day is a very important day in America. Arguably, it is the most important day of an election year. And, like other important days in a year – Christmas, the Superbowl and the Oscars – it is heavily advertised.

I remember watching 30-second voting commercials and mini-PSAs (Public Service Announcements) for up to two months before the election. There were the Barrack Obama bashing Mitt Romney and vice-versa advertisements, and the vote-so-and-so-for-Senator or Congress announcements. After a while, I became so familiar with the ads that I was seeing them in my sleep. They became just as annoying to watch as the multiple commercials you would see Thanksgiving day for Black Friday.

Maybe they just annoyed me the most because I was not participating in voting on Election day, but I found that to anyone I was watching TV with at the time of a voting commercial, it wasn’t just me who sighed on the couch. TV spots about the candidates were just one consequence about Election day that bothered me, though. The second came in the form of Facebook.

I consider myself to be a believer of the First Amendment, which says Americans deserve the freedom of speech. Facebook has come to be a strong outlet in which the public can voice their opinions on just about anything as their status of the day. Personally, I choose to update my FB friends on the annoying people I have to deal with in the library or an important song lyric that means something to me in that moment (usually coming out of Taylor Swift’s mouth). Besides the annoyingly repetitive girls that post a status about their morning routines or plans of the day, I see no problem in status updating.

That is, until it comes time for an election. The week leading up to Election day, I couldn’t scroll past two people’s updates without reading something in the form of “GOBAMA” or a Republican’s take on an issue with favor to Romney. The incessant Facebook updates wouldn’t stop until two days after the election. This wouldn’t have bothered me so much if the same people that claimed to be so politically involved didn’t post a single thing political for the entire year leading up to the election. I believe that if you say you follow and believe in something so strongly, then you wouldn’t just post status updates about that something once every four years. It would be a day-to-day or pretty regular process.

I know people that are regularly involved with politics, no matter what age or major and to them I have respect. They believe in what they believe in and don’t choose to shove those beliefs down other people’s throats. Sure, they got a little excited around Election day, but to them I compare Election day to the Oscars for me or the Superbowl to really big football fans; it’s a day they have waited for for a while, and it’s one day out of the year when true fans deserve to be a little excited when their “team” has won.

By Mary Pickett