The Causes and Effects of Bullying

I know you’ve heard this before, but bullying is a huge problem for many people all around the globe. Bullying is when one person or a group of people make rude comments towards another or harasses them repeatedly. Cyberbullying is when someone is harassing someone via text messaging, tweeting, IMing, or even video chatting.

Why Does the Bully bully?

There could be many causes for people to feel the need to bully someone. It could be that they were feeling annoyed or angry that day and needed to take their feelings out on someone else, or because there are things going on in the bully’s personal life that they think no one can understand, so they push people who are trying to help them away, and a last cause could be because they think that making fun of someone will get them into the “popular crowd” or make them look cool. Trust me, bullying someone will get you nothing.

So What Happens to the Victim?

When someone is thinking about harassing someone, they don’t think about how their words would impact the person they’re bullying. If the bullies’ words have a negative impact on the victim, it will be harder and take longer to brush off. Most bullying leads to stress, depression, low self-esteem, and, sadly, suicide. And what hurts me the most is that once the bully has seen how bad their words and actions have impacted him/her, they then start reaching out. Doesn’t make sense, right? If in the end you’re going to start feeling bad about what you did, why do it in the first place?

Bye-standers

Bystanders. Yes, I know I spelled it wrong up there, but you’ll see why in a second. Bystanders are people who witness the conviction happening, but do nothing about it. If you see something happening, tell an adult, teacher, guidance counselor, or the principal. Doing this won’t make you a tattletale, it will help stop the interrogation from continuing on. Please don’t stand there and watch without doing anything after. You could be the key to ending the problem, so why don’t you do just that?

~Emily

Bullying can be Worse Than it Sounds

 

Bullying is a big topic in most schools. It could be cyber or personal bullying. Cyber bullying is when someone bullies another person online. Most of the time when cyber bullying happens it’s through social media. Personal bullying is when it happens at school, work, the playground, or even at a friends house. The definition of bullying is “Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.  A bully could be anyone anywhere.

Every time I hear about bullying its normally at an annual school assembly. When I hear the teachers talk about bullying I don’t actually pay attention until they start to tell us about the stories about some bully victims. Some of the stories you hear really will break your heart. Most of them are about students who attempted suicide or who have actually commited it. Did you know that there are 4,400 deaths every year from suicide caused by bullying? Also that there are at least 100 suicide attempts every year? Next time you see someone getting bullied please stick up for them so that they aren’t added to the statistics.

~Cecilia

Cyberbullying

Bullying has forever been an issue in schools everywhere, but today, with all of the new technology, cyberbullying has become a bigger problem. Cyber-bullying is when a child or teenager is teased, harassed, threatened, etc. by another child via internet, mobile phones or another communication device. Messages may be sent directly to the victim (direct attacks)  or be ganged up by a number of cyber bullies. Cyber-bullying is usually caused by revenge, anger, or just pure entertainment. Many cyberbullies bully for the laughs or acceptance of others.

Bullies often cyber-bully because traditional bullying is face to face with the victim and there’s a lot of humiliation involved within the action. Cyber-bullying allows the bullies to harass the target without their identity being shown or a large audience supporting the bully. Cyber-bullying is becoming a more common use of teasing someone because of the technology source available today.  Bullying only takes place when a victim and a bully interact face to face so its much easier to try to avoid. Cyber-bullying can happen anytime or anyplace because of instant messaging.

Bullying is becoming less popular, but unfortunately cyber-bullying is becoming more and more common. To prevent cyber bully attacks you can take action against bullies. Kids need to respect one another, and treat others the way they want to be treated. If cyber-bullying has been already occurring, telling a parent or trusted adult can help stop bullies.

~Katie Tomko

Cyber-bullying; It’s useless, but why so Common????

Everyone knows how worthless Cyberbullying is, but some kids just don’t care! On Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. there are arrogant  teens trying to act all cool, and things start to get out of hand. Sometimes it starts off with a normal conversation, until there is nothing left to say. Then people get bored, and this is where people can get, well, careless. People stop talking about themselves, and start talking about others. That’s when the cyberbullies start posting stupid stuff on Facebook or something, like pictures or comments that can really hurt someone. For example, on September 9, 2012 a little boy was cyberbullied, and dreads going to school! I’ll tell you what happened; a mean classmate thought being an immature, rude, bully was considered “cool”, and decided to see how many other people “hated” this little boy. To find out, he posted a status and then “asked his friends to like it” if they hated the little boy! To read more about what happened, click here.

Obviously I hate cyber bullies, and bullying in general. The idea of hurting someone, and knowing it is just disgusting in my eyes. I mean seriously, has anyone ever heard of a digital footprint!? Even if someone only cyberbullies someone once, it can ruin their reputation later in life, because it is never deleted; it’s on the internet forever! However, the thing that really bugs me is that cyberbullying is becoming more common. How is this even possible!? Most kids are smart enough to understand the consequences, but it seems that some of them are just too…obsessed with trying to be “cool” even though we all know that bullying is so not cool! So, what do you think? Why do you think cyberbullying is more common now?

~Christina Middendorf

“Actions DON”T Speak Louder than Words”

Why talk on the phone when you can text, facebook, or twitter someone?  Studies have shown that most of the youth of today would rather text someone than talk to that person face to face.  That may have a major impact on cyber-bullying.  The thing is, when someone is bullied in public, that person knows who is causing him the drama, but when bullying is done online the person may be unaware of the person who is bullying them.  All of this technology is making it easier for adolescence, especially, to become verbally abused.

When a mean post is written online, everyone can see it causing more emotional stress than you could ever imagine.  Also, someone can be blackmailed online, too.  No one may ever know who the bully is, and that is the saddest part of all.  When a person is bullied in any way, we should tell someone.  However it is embarrassing to be bullied.  Do you want your parents knowing you were bullied? It is hard because the youth of today are trying to please everyone.  Also, trying to cope with bullying can seem impossible, because it can make us realize our flaws.  Therefore, the youth of today are being verbally abused rather than physically.

~Janaia Skibitcky