Negative Campaigning, It's always complicated

In our most recent presidential election, 2012, the voters seemed to be in awe and confusion on who they thought would make the best POTUS. To me, and I'm sure to many others, it seemed like we were voting for the lesser of two evils. Being a huge Obama fan even I was disjointed with how negative our last campaign seemed to go, loaded with constant mudslinging ads rather than ads promoting oneself in an honest way. It is estimated that about 80-85% of ads launched throughout the campaign were negative (received from Huffington Post...I know, not the most reliable source), exemplifying the idea of negative campaigning (aka mudslinging). At the point where negative ads take over the airways we, as voters, tend to become more negative about our political system which results in us losing faith in it.
Making a connection to this weeks reading, in the article "It's Complicated," we are told that the age group of 18-29 is not voting at rates of other age groups. We are seen as lazy and apathetic to voting and participating in our political system. The article touches base on the idea that social media outlets are creating an atmosphere for our age group to get involved and, although we are participating more in the news via videos/blogs/etc, we are still not going out to the polls and voting. It is my belief that there is much more to it than the simple statistical outcomes. I believe that our generation has come to realize that through a negative campaign we are unable to truly understand what a candidate stands for, whereas we truly and overwhelmingly understand why we should hate both candidates with a passion. In addition, purely relying on social media to receive our political information allows us to curve the information that we see to suit our political views. If more outlets were used then perhaps we would see all sides of every issue an have a more rounded understanding of the issues at hand. In the long run, with studies backing this claim, it seems that constant negative campaigning is leading to the downfall of our current political system and without a change the voter turnout will either remain stagnant or decrease. Saying that, I strongly think we need to steer clear of negative campaigning and expand the possibility of other parties having a chance in the presidential election, as they would truly make way for equal representation of the whole nation.