Randolph student participates in presidential Twitter Town Hall

Patrick Glynn ’12 was one of 30 people chosen to attend the White House's first Twitter Town Hall and document it on Twitter.

Just before shaking hands with President Barack Obama, Patrick Glynn ’12 tapped on his iPhone 4 screen and sent this message to the world: “Is it rude to tweet in front of the President? I don't think that's in any book of manners yet...”

Glynn was one of 30 people selected to attend the first presidential town hall meeting operated through Twitter—the social media application that allows people to spread messages in “tweets” of up to 140 characters—on July 6. People from around the country submitted questions via Twitter. Obama answered the questions during a live broadcast while his staff condensed his responses into Twitter messages. Glynn and others who were present at the White House documented the event on their own Twitter accounts.

Glynn’s presence at the conference came unexpectedly. At the end of June, the White House announced that it would choose some of its Twitter followers to attend the event live. Glynn registered for the opportunity, although he thought it was a long shot.

“I didn’t actually think I would be picked to go, but I thought I would just try and see what would happen,” he said. “I wanted to go because I had always wanted to meet the president. He’s the first president I voted for.”

About 24 hours before the town hall meeting, Glynn learned he had made the cut. At 5 a.m. the next day, he began the six-hour drive to Washington, D.C. By 2 p.m., he was shaking hands with Obama.

Glynn appeared in one picture that The Huffington Post published about the event. Glynn is the person sitting closest to the television in this picture.

During the event, Obama addressed a question Glynn had asked on Twitter about what can be done to preserve collective bargaining rights. Glynn’s profile on Twitter received more than 100 mentions as people discussed his question and debated the merits of unions.

Glynn, a French and political science major from Havelock, N.C., has had a Twitter account under the name pmglynn for a few months. He believes social media will engage more young people in politics and change the way politicians campaign.

“The president can, in 140 characters, deliver a message to a demographic, and then that person who is on the other end reading it has this feeling that the president is talking directly to them on a level that they’re familiar with,” he said. “I think it’s going to change the way that you see politicians operate. They’re going to operate on a more personal level over media rather than in a larger speech giving arena.”