Bullying, “seek to harm, intimidate, or coerce (someone perceived as vulnerable).”   

Cause and Effect of Bullying

Bullying has many causes. However, typically there is usually a reason that triggers the behavior. In the article “8 Reasons why people bully” it gives a great insight on some major reasons for bullying, “power, popularity, payback, problems at home, pleasure, prejudices, peer pressure, and pleasure.” Although there are only 7 here, each one of these has the infinite possibility of being the reason for bullying.

Power: bullying can be caused by power. Certain teens want control and crave it because they do not get it in their own life.

Popularity: bullying can come from social status, the fact that one person that is less known or less than someone gets bullied, or they bully someone to obtain social status in school.

Payback: the victims of bullying can take a toll and pursue the position of the bully, they are referred to bully-victims (victims of bullying who are now bullies). Problems at home, home life can be difficult especially if abuse or violence is modeled at home. A lot of times kids that experience abuse or see it, think that it is okay and then do it to someone else.

Pleasure: there is a line that kids will cross, this line involves bullying for fun, the reason it happens is for the entertainment and pleasure it gives to some kids.

Prejudices: getting singled out is never fun, especially due to race, sexuality, and a myriad of other differences, which can  lead to prejudice (when someone gets left out just because they are different).

Peer pressure: when fitting in it can be difficult, and telling someone to bully someone else just so that they are accepted into a friend group. 

Bullying is not new.  It has been a big topic for a long time, but sometimes not everyone knows why it happens.

The effects caused by bullying can be extremely serious, bullying can have a major impact.

A WCHS teacher Mrs. Cullum states, “I know that bullying occurs especially over social media. Bullying can be very detrimental to a student’s mental health I think social media is a platform where bullying can take place more frequently and more aggressively.”  

Types of Bullying 

Physical, social, and verbal bullying are the three types of bullying that happen today.

In the article “What is Bullying” it states that physical bullying, “involves hurting a person’s body or possessions.” and that includes hitting, kicking, spitting, tripping, pushing, breaking someone’s things, rude hand gestures, or mean hand gestures. This type of bullying is easier to notice than others because it causes physical harm, and someone’s eyes can see it happen. 

Social bullying is harder to detect.  Social bullying “sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships.” States the article “What is Bullying” (stopbullying.Gov). Social bullying refers to situations in where someone is left out, telling someone not to be friends with someone, spreading rumors, and embarrassing someone. Although this one is hard to spot as it is based specifically on rumors and reputation, it will take more observation skills.

Verbal bullying according to stopbullying.gov states “is saying or writing mean things.”  This type of bullying is common now because it happens for “fun.” For example a lot of friend groups say mean things to each other to be “funny.”

Verbal bullying can include rude comments, teasing, taunting, etc. Verbal Bullying becomes part of someone’s life to the point where the victim is expecting people to say and direct mean words/sayings toward them. It takes willpower and time to notice if someone is truly getting bullied verbally.   

To summarize, bullying still happens sometimes and it does not always go away. However, being educated on the topic of bullying can lead to better understanding, and ways to stop bullying from continuing.