The Rise Of Bullying In America

Have you ever been bullied? Bullying happens every day in America. Everyday someone is being made fun of, or harm physically, emotionally, and/or mentally because of their skin color, religion, social economics, culture, and many more. Because of the social impact of the increasing numbers of bullies, there should be more education for the victims and harsher consequences for the bullies.
Bullying is on the rise. “Bullies are aggressive people who repeatedly physically or emotionally abuse, torment, or victimize someone else.” (Wells). A bully is a person who uses strength, popularity, or power to harm another person to make they feel better about themselves personally as a person. A bully is a person who purposely tries to harm others
by: making feel uncomfortable, hurting the, home calling ads/or spreading rumor” (kzoo.edu/bullying.) All of this of this is for the bully to feel better but mostly for the victim to feel bad. A victim is the exact opposite of a bully. Victims are not the ones doing the bullying. People who are victimized should be more enlighten on ways to deal with, handle, or avoid bullying. People who do the bullying, in my opinion should have more serious precautions and sever outcomes.
There are two main causes of bullying. The first main reason is the bullies may have high self-esteem. Bullies are often popular among their peers. Frequently bullies are admired for their physical toughness. “Bullying usually involves an older or larger child or children victimized a single child who is unable to defend him or herself” (Wells). The second main point is bullies tend to have an excessive amount frustration. The frustration often times comes from problems at home. The bullies become upset to the point where they are taking their anger out on someone more vulnerable than themselves (Donegan).
The act of bullying has many negative effects not only on the victims but also on the bullies. Some negative effect of victims is loneliness, difficulty making friends, and insecurity. Victims of bullying often suffer humiliation, insecurity, and low self-esteem. They may even develop a fear of going to school or the place the bullying has occurred. Victims are also at a great risk to suffer from depression and in worst cases, commit suicide. The bullies have negative effects along with the victims. Researchers suggest that bullies often lead to criminal later on in life. It has been reported that “…60 percent of males who were bullies in grade sixth through ninth were convicted of at least one crime as adults…” (Wells)
In the past, bullying was not as prevalent as it is today.
The way in which we view bullying today is much different than years ago. A “bully” in the 1950’s would have been defined as someone who singles out weak classmates and picks on them, in a physical way. For example, hitting, kicking, and punching, stealing another person’s lunch, and /or dumping cafeteria trays. (break.com/topic/bullies) As time progressed, it became easier to identify and recognize what we considered a “bully”. Needless to say, years ago, the outward appearance of a bully usually consisted of the kid with larger statue, stronger and visually a much scarier looking individual that terrorized everybody else. Although bullying consisted of physical behavior during that time, there was a safe zone where the victim could escape the bully, it was home. Today a victim can be bullied in his or her own home and it may or may not ever be recognized
(Penegan).
Today, bullying has become quite common in America. Bullying has majorly increased according to the U.S. Department of Justice. (Wells) Today “bullying” is an overused stigmatized word nobody wants to address. On the course of this present day bullying can happen to anyone at any time. With the increase of technology and lack of supervision from children’s parents kids can be exposed to bullying at any time. Bullying no longer happens at school. It can happen: online, via text message, pictures, and/or social media. These are all examples of cyberbullying. (Peagream) Cyberbullying is using electronic communication to dehumanize or bully a person (Donegan) if there is no stop put to bullying, it will steadily increase to the future.
In the past, bullying will be at an immense rate if no one puts a halt to it.
Today five out of ten children are bullied (Peagream). This number is most likely to increase not decrease. Bullying has been engrained in America society since the country’s founding. Bullying has remained a relevant issue through the years; with no bully prevention this will bring greater problems to this country” (Donegan). The biggest struggle for cyberbullying prevention in the future is matching the fast pace of technological innovation with effective preventable techniques (Donegan). With that being said there should be someone or something to put a halt to bullying or bullying will surely
increase.
According to Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin of the Cyberbullying Research center, up to five thousands teens ranging from ages eleven to eighteen from a fairly large school district in the United States, down south as surveyed in 2010 on cyberbullying. In the study, the researchers defined cyberbullying as “when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text messaging or when someone post online about another person that they don’t like (Donegan). According to their results a large number of cyberbullying victimization had been occurring in this southern United States school district. Nearly fifty percent of that school district had been victimized of cyberbullying (Donegan). Many people throughout America have a story about bullying.
According to an anonymous writer, bullying can happen anytime, anywhere, to anybody. The unknown author was a freshman going into college. Bullying was the last thing on her mind. She was a quite girl yet never had trouble making friends. She moved in with a complete stranger name Stephanie who later became her best friends. They were always together. Everyone knew them as a pair. However, nobody’s perfect, including Stephanie, the best friend, had flaws…Stephanie always had to be in the spotlight, she was very outgoing. Toward the end of the spring semester the unknown writer and Stephanie started having their disagreements because they were complete opposites. Stephanie was outspoken and outgoing while the unknown author was quiet and soft spoken. School ended and they weren’t even friends anymore. Sophomore years came around and Stephanie had told everyone not to talk to the anonymous author. As a result of this action, the anonymous author went into depression because she felt alone. With the depression came drowsiness and weight gain. The unknown author even had thoughts about suicide. Eventually, she met a girl by name of Emma in her class who had been going through the exact same thing with the exact same person. Stephanie was bullying both of them by using her popularity for evil and not good. The anonymous author and Emma reported Stephanie and her actions to the counselor and Stephanie was removed from class. As a result of the anonymous writer being bullying, she currently has problems with depression. Although she’s stronger and more motivated, it’s hard for her to find and trust friends. According to the mentioned article, the unknown writer wants to raise bullying awareness (I Was Bullied in College). Nonetheless, there are some people that oppose that bullying needs to stop.
Shockingly there are some beliefs that are contrary to the listed above. Bullying is considered to be one of the most stressful experiences of childhood. But standing up tot eh bullies in the classroom can help. Bullying can be very damaging to children leading to anxiety and depression but children can benefit from it. In a study of American children age eleven and eighteen, researchers from University of California, Los Angeles compared those who stood up to bullies to those who didn’t. The boys who stood up more socially satisfied their teachers. Girls who did the same were more pop and admired by peers and teachers; the researchers found the study was not to motivate bullying just to show that negative experiences could teach children about conflict resolution. (David, Perbyshie). Although this is a good theory, children should not have to rick depression, humiliation, suicide and anxiety to gain social acceptance.
In an effort to bring bullying to an end, America must come together. Today there are many ways to cease bullying. One way to stop bullying is to join or start an anti-bullying program. Anti-bullying is a form of bullying prevention. Parents and teachers can do a number of things to prevent bullying such as give opportunities to discuss ways to with aggressors-role playing exercises. Another way to prevent bullying is to teach to communication and self-confidence (Bullies). These are all great ideas to cease bullying.
In conclusion, bullying is engrained in America society and is very prevalent in our culture. Because of the social impact of the increasing number of bullying, there should be more education for victims and harsher consequences for the aggressors or bullying.

Work Cited
Works Cited
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Author, U. (2010). I was Bullied in College . Snap Judgement, 2.
Bullies. (2001). 102.
Center, S. P. (2011). Suicide and Bullying. SPRC.
Daily Mail. (2010, May 21). Retrieved 2014, from www.dailymail.com
Donegan, R. (n.d.). Bullying and Cyberbullying . 5.
Frazier, K. N. (2011). Acedemic Bullying. Florida Journal of Education, 13.
Peagram, K. (2013). The Evolution of Bullying. Bully Boot Camp , 6. from chicagonow.com