For today’s 20-something-year-olds, the 9/11 terrorist attacks are the Pearl Harbor and JFK shooting of their generation. At the time when that generation were only in their pre and early teen years, many can recall  when and where they were when the hi-jacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA. On September 11th, 2001, television sets donned horrific images of  Manhattan’s Twin Towers fall to the ground and the country remained informed by means of radio and newspapers.

Fast forward about nine years, seven months, and 20 days later. The times have quickly changed. From between then and now, these young Americans have seen the norm in politics change, a long and agonizing war, economic crisis, and have been introduced to technologies way more advanced than what they were at the beginning of the decade.

So should it come to any surprise that many found out the news of President Obama announcing the death of the world’s most dangerous terrorist, Osama bin Laden via social networking sites? The news about the end of bin Laden spread like wild fire by means of  the Internet. While many  celebrated in the streets of New York City, Washington D.C. and college campuses around the world like Indiana State University and Boston University (most who were notified of the celebrations by social networking or text messaging), others expressed their celebratory messages and concerned opinions on Facebook and Twitter, sites that didn’t even exist until years after 9/11.

Something that was once just considered a outlet for the younger crowd, social media has now become a very powerful tool that has surpassed its typical demographic and now the fastest and most efficient way to reach the masses. According to an article by Gigaom,  after President Obama’s speech on Sunday night, Twitter reported  it was fielding about 4,000 tweets a second. That number almost matches the peak of tweets posted during this year’s Super Bowl.It is said that the first source of credible news was reported via Twitter  by Keith Urbahn, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s chief of staff.

“So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.”, tweeted Urbahn.

The Wall Street Journal mentioned that Facebook asked  journalists where they first hear the news of bin Laden’s death. From the hundreds that replied, many said they found out from Twitter, Facebook, or email/RSS feed alerts. Over night, a Facebook fan page called “Osama Bin Laden is DEAD” had more than 200,000 likes by early Monday morning.

Now that social networking and media are  more widely embraced and used, even our government’s leaders are taking their praises with a click of a button. Republican Senator John McCain tweeted: “We finally got him, justice has been done.”

Only less than 24 hours later, the buzz about the death of bin Laden is still causing very high momentum on the Web. Whether it’d be comments of happiness, concerns of what is to come, or speculation if the death is really true and the where abouts of actual proof, social networking sites are delivering the news faster than the traditional media that first reported bin Laden’s attacks back in 2001.

The times they are a-changin’ and it is truly a dawn of  a new era in our nation’s history.