Bullying

According to the NSPCC, 31% of children experienced bullying by their peers during childhood, a further 7% were discriminated against and 14% were made to feel different or "like an outsider". 43% experienced at least one of these things during childhood. Bullying is known to have long-term effects on an individual, including putting them at greater risk for depression, low self esteem and social withdrawal. At least 16 children a year in the UK commit suicide because of bullying. There is workplace bullying, cyber bullying, racist bullying, homophobic bullying and various other types. But the real question is, why do so many people carry on doing it?

A common answer is that the bully is a victim themself and deals with it by taking on the role of the aggressor (although if you know how much something hurts when it's done to you, why choose to do that to someone else?!). Another explanation is that bullies pick on people who are different in some way, whether that be for appearance (e.g. weight), behaviour (e.g. shyness) or situation (e.g. coming from a poor family). Jealousy is also often a factor, with some people being targeted for being clever, pretty or successful. The most common theme, however, is that bullies are cowards and tend to victimise people who, for whatever reason, they don't believe will do anything to them in return.

Personally though, I think that a lot of bullies don't believe that they are doing anything wrong. In fact, they usually place the blame onto their victim, saying that they are being oversensitive, taking it too seriously or that it's their fault for being different. These things are all very easy to say when they are not the ones having the bullying done to them, but sadly I think that most perpetrators delude themselves into thinking that what they're doing isn't that bad and that they're just "having a laugh".

Some cases of young people who have taken their own lives because of bullying: http://www.jaredstory.com/bully.html

An article about successful people who were bullied at school: http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-10-celebrities-who-were-bullied/

NSPCC's statistics on bullying: http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/statistics/bullying_statistics_wda48744.html

Some information about workplace bullying: http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/workplace-bullying.html