Rise of Social media and the contribution to Discrimination
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The advances in computer technology began in the late 1900’s, followed by the rise of social media in the early 2000’s (Wood 2). The society uses social media in everyday life. Social media has contributed to positive aspects of life, but it has also contributed to discrimination of those individuals with disabilities. The disability that will be focused on throuhgout this website is Down syndrome. Social media has allowed its users to post images, language, and terminology related to Down syndrome (Wood 2). Paul Hunt discovered a few of the stereotypes used to portray disabled individuals (Wood 3). These stereotypes include, but are not limited to viewing disabled people as pathetic, laughable, unable to participate in daily life, and as a burden (Wood 3). These stereotypes have been produced on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and other social media outlets through news articles, videos, and pictures associated with funny captions. As these social media outlets continue to be produce the discrimination of Down syndrome will become worse. One of the first social media outlets was Myspace. After Myspace, Facebook was invented. Now that Facebook is getting old Twitter is becoming the new face of social media. This trend will continue for the next twenty years.