Sat Collegeboard Essay on Bullying

In our daily world today, people tend to be more open and let themselves become known perhaps, a little too much and too frequently. People should begin to keep things private as if they reveal too much about themselves they leave themselves wide open bullying and gossip; their strengths and weaknesses become known to their friends, family or even strangers in their society or even the world.

Bullying is a common form of exploiting a weakness that you feel a need to respond to in a generally aggressive manner by taunting, hitting or embarrassing them, gossiping is another form where you spread rumors and secrets that you've heard about and again, often exploits weaknesses in people; as if you gossiped to make fun of someone or put them down. The reason why these weaknesses appear is because people today, feel the need to be open, they are pressured to be social and with that comes a lot of talk about each other. Perhaps another reason is that teenagers today don't "hang out," as much as previous generations did, but instead use instant messaging and text messages more, and frequently they convey what the other person's feelings are through their words and comments. Being behind a screen takes away insecurities and allows people to feel that they are safe and sound, except when you gossip or tell a secret of yours. As the gossiping trend continues, we see that the secrets could spill out and backfire.

An example of bullying or gossiping could be a regular girl who talks about her experience with someone like her boyfriend or friend, feeling safe she texts her friend who, by nature, gossips and tells a more popular girl who feels that the person who sent the original text is weak or meek even. She gossips and suddenly the school is laughing at her about her boyfriend, girls feel pity and bully her by beating her up or dumping food on her. An example like this is a classic scenario of a girl who felt safe and decided to be open instead of keeping her