the Negative Effects of Bullying on Teenagers

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Name: Teneka Brathwaite
Class: U6-1
Subject: Communication Studies
Topic: The Negative Effects of Bullying
on Teenagers.

The Negative Effects of Bullying on
Teenagers
According to bullyingstatistics.org, “bullying includes
behaviors that focus on making someone else feel inadequate, or
focus on belittling someone else. It includes harassment, physical
harm, repeatedly demeaning speech and efforts to ostracize or
exclude another person”. It is active, and is done with the
intention of bringing another person down. GlobalPost reports that
“teen bullying is an intention from one teen to another to exert
pain -- physically or emotionally”. Over time, continual bullying
can result in severe consequences for the victim. In the teen
years, when social status becomes most important, bullying can
be even more painful and can have a lot of negative effects on
kids in today’s society such as health problems, decline in grades
and drug use.
Someone’s appearance may be one of the reasons that can
account for them being bullied. Just because someone may not
look like how society wants them to, they may start to be
ridiculed by others. If the person being bullied doesn’t show any
emotion to these ridicules, the bullies may start cyber-bullying.
According to Kidshealth.org, cyber-bullying may be termed as
“the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass or target
another person.” It mainly occurs among young people.
According to bullyingstatistics.org “about 42 percent of kids have
been bullied while online with one in four being verbally attacked
more than once”. Some bullies even take cyber-bullying as far as
secretly videotaping someone doing personal things. The bullies
then attempt to post these videos on the internet and if
successful, can do a lot of harm to someone. This in turn can lead
to health problems and it can also affect one’s school work.

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention) “youth bullying is a major public health problem in
America. It causes extensive and often damaging mental and
physical health problems.” depression can be one of these
problems. Merriam-Webster defines Depression as “a serious
medical condition where a person feels very sad, hopeless, and
unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way.”
Depression in teens can be a serious problem because it can lead
to self-harming and even suicide. Teenagers start to think that they
are not good enough or not worthy of being alive any longer and
when a teenager starts to have suicidal thoughts, they may not
what to do or how to react to these thoughts. On September 10,
2013, Rebecca Sedwick of Florida committed suicide after being
continuously being bullied for over a year. Reports have said that
she jumped off an abandoned concrete factory. She was only 12
years old. Most teenagers don’t know how to react to suicidal
thoughts but when the bullying becomes uncontrollable, they may
act on it as in the case of Rebecca.
Furthermore, bullying can also affect one’s school work and
ultimately, their grades. According to Staffordshire Learning Net,
“Children miss lessons or are too scared to attend school. They lose
concentration when they do attend.” The only thoughts that are
going to be on a person’s mind when they are in class are, ‘Why
me?’ or ‘Is anyone waiting for me outside of class?’ When things
like these pervade the mind of a child, it is very easy to lose focus
on other things, especially school work. According to study in the
February 2011 edition of the "Journal of Early Adolescence," “A high
level of bullying by schoolmates is consistently related to academic
disengagement and poor grades.” Researchers found that
consistent bullying can be a significant factor in dropping grades
up to a letter and a half over three years. Dewey Cornell, a clinical
psychologist and professor of education at the University of
Virginia, reported on his research study to the 119th Annual
Convention of the American Psychological Association that "a

bullying climate may play an important role in student test
performance." He and co-author Anna Lacey found that the more
pervasive the bullying culture at a school, the lower the school's
standardized test scores tended to be.

Substance abuse is another effect of bullying. According to
the Center for Advancing Health, “being the victim of bullying does
indeed lead to higher risk of substance abuse.” Being bullied
causes teens to feel depressed, and using drugs is a common
method of coping with depression. When one uses drugs, it makes
them feel as if everything in the world is going to be fine and that
is one of the reasons why teens who are bullied use drugs. Experts
at Ohio State University in America have found that high-school
students (aged 13 to 16) who are both perpetrators and bully
victims used intoxicating substances, suggesting that one
“deviant” behaviour may be linked to the other.
At the end of it all, According to Staffordshire Learning Net,
some of the effects last long after the bullying, until they are
adults. Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI) in one study found adults who
said that they still recalled bullying incidents from thirty years ago
and considered that the effects remain with them. Whether or not
you are being bullied, it can leave a lasting impression on you. If
you are a bystander, you can feel compromised, helpless and
guilty. Let us all get together and help to stop bullying!

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