Nearly seven million young people will be newly eligible to vote this November. And contrary to what most might think, a recent study of how these voters engage in politics using new media shows they’re paying close attention.

“A lot of what we’re trying to understand is the way in which [using new media] might be related to the ways in which young people are being active politically,” said the study’s co-author, Joseph Kahne.

Of the 3,000 young people age 15-25 surveyed in the study, Participatory Politics: New Media and Youth Political Action, 41 percent reported using these online activities to engage in political discussions or actions. That could be anything from sharing a video of Mitt Romney giving a speech to the NAACP, to signing a petition on Change.org asking Seventeen Magazine to quit photo-shopping pictures of its models, to tweeting about the violence in Syria.

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