A teenage girl walks down a hallway at school with hundreds of students staring at her and laughing at a message on their phone. Students are throwing crumpled up pieces of paper and calling her names like “slut” and “hoe”. This is a common scene portrayed in a movie about a girl being bullied. According to pacer.org, 6% of American high school students have reported of being bullied in 2014 and 14.8% of students have reported being bullied online.

Bullying comes in all forms ranging from name calling to physical abuse. With technology advancing, cyberbullying has become a huge problem at City High. People can’t even feel safe in their own homes, the bullies are able to hide behind a little screen and say things that they wouldn’t say in person. Cell phones and social media make it so much easier to get bullied and it makes it easier for people to join in with the mean comments and texts, making the situation even worse. Mean tweets, posting embarrassing pictures on Instagram, adding people into a group chat and saying mean things about them are just some of things that go on in the cyber world. No matter what it is, it still hurts and damages a person. Bullying is known to lead to an increase of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and a long term effect on a person’s self esteem.

The damage is still done even after the apology. A person may say that they forgive you and that it’s okay, but they will NEVER forget the words you said or how you made them feel. There is no excuse for saying those hurtful things. The guy in math class may not be as “cool” as your group of friends, but that’s not an excuse to call him weird and laugh at at everything he says. A girl is wearing extremely tight clothing? Not an excuse to call her a “hoe”. High school can be a very hard four years for some people, everyone has a story and everyone is trying to fight their own battles, they don’t need you making them feel any worse, so think before you speak.

How many times do you have to be bullied before the school intervenes? Once. If you don’t feel comfortable at school, the school has to do something about it. You are NOT overreacting if you tell a trusted adult that you’ve been bullied. No one else knows how you feel about the situation, so if you feel like you’ve been violated, tell someone. The staff and administration at City High want to make sure you feel safe being at school. If you or someone you know is being bullied, report it. No one deserves to be torn down by another person, and a good way to stop the bullying is to speak up.