Crystal Yang, founder and president of the Best Marlborough Buddies chapter, is dedicated to creating a fully inclusive environment at her school. Her mission is to raise awareness within her community and work towards ending ableism in society. Amidst the dialogue on discrimination against individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), Crystal realized the realm of social media often remains absent from the conversation.

Recognizing social media’s growing prevalence in our daily lives, Crystal conducted research on the treatment of individuals with IDD on social media networks. Crystal shares, “While social media platforms and online communities can help us forge connections, it has also become a platform for abusive and offensive language. Realizing this societal issue prompted me to look into specific data and research on both the positive and negative impact social media has on students. However, when I came across a news report about the extent of society’s exacerbation for hatred of the disabled community, this made me want to change this reality. Therefore, I hope that my research can serve as a catalyst and inspiration for our community at large to push for a revisit of the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

Continue reading to discover insights from Crystal’s research:

“With a growing influence of social media in our lives, there has been a surge in social media violence, particularly targeting the disabled community and individuals with IDD (Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities). A number of studies have shown that regardless of sex, gender, or other identities, people with disabilities experience a higher risk of being bullied online. Thus, it is crucial to integrate democratic literacy into our educational framework to enhance societal awareness of the adverse encounters individuals with disabilities experience. While former President H.W. Bush’s implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) protected the disabled community from discrimination, it does not explicitly address issues of discrimination and cyberbullying on social media. Therefore, our law enforcement and education system need to be reformed to combat cyberbullying targeting the disabled community.

Teenagers like Asaka Park, a disabled teenager, share his struggles to successfully communicate in school; however, he is a “completely different person” on social media (Park, 2019). Park claims that social media helped him thrive by allowing him to share his negative experiences at school through blog posts and tweets. With the help of emojis and GIFs, Park can now convey facial expressions that were previously challenging for him— a crucial tool for Park to thrive on social media. However, social media no longer serves as a safe space for disabled individuals to freely express and share their experiences. Organizations such as the Anti-Bullying Alliance found that disabled children on the internet are “more likely to experience online bullying”. Kowalski’s (et.al, 2018) research corroborates with this idea as it highlights that 72.9% of the participants with disabilities compared to 50.4% of participants without a disability experienced cyberbullying in their lives. Additionally, with a sample of approximately ten thousand students, studies showed that the disabled were 87% more likely to experience bullying and 55% percent more likely to experience cyberbullying (Cole, 2023). Some argue that this higher percentage could be caused by students who “feel less connected to and accepted by their peers”, and that they may have less access and reliable adults to tell on.

Furthermore, cyberbullying has a negative impact on both physical and mental health of the disabled community. Didden’s research on “Cyberbullying among students with [IDD] in special education settings” found that there was a correlation between social media violence and IQ, self-esteem, and depressive feelings (Didden, 2009). His research found that the bullied experience a higher percentage of mental health problems, including “depressive feelings, loneliness, [and] negative self-concept” than their peers of the same age. This traumatic experience significantly influences the lives of the disabled, making it challenging for them to find their voice and advocate on behalf of this pervasive issue. Thus, it is imperative for our educational system to address various dimensions of health with an emphasis on acknowledging the trauma associated with feelings of suppression, creating an environment that fosters individuals with IDD and their overall well-being.

While the ADA prohibits discrimination against disabled people, it does not address discrimination and cyberbullying on social media amid all the results the studies found above. It is important for our government to recognize that laws of the 90’s need to be revisited and changed to accommodate present-day social inequalities. Additionally, our education system and individual schools should take action to establish support systems for individuals with disabilities to create an inclusive and empowering environment for the disabled community, ultimately reducing the prevalence of cyberbullying.”