PHYSICAL VS. DIGITAL: WHY THE IMPACT OF BULLYING IS IDENTICAL

image generated using Gemini AI

People are built differently, and as such, they react differently to things and situations. Now, to the topic of bullying, just as in different cases and how people are built, this(bullying) affects people differently. Some people might feel the effect only when done physically, while others can feel it even online. Not everyone has thick skin for resisting situations, and as such, bullying shouldn't be taken lightly. Bullying a person physically has as many negative effects as bullying a person online.

Before we go further in our discourse, we need to answer the question "What's bullying in the first place?" It is the act of intimidating a person into doing something, especially through repeated coercion or persistent acts that make life unpleasant for another person.
With these definitions, you see that bullying can have a lot of effects on a person, which include trauma, low self-esteem, fear, and depression, to name a few. I remember, during my secondary school days, when we were still junior students, we were all scared of being bullied by senior students. We would try to hide from them every time and pray that nothing would bring us together. Thankfully, we were in separate hostels, which kept us safe during our junior school. I remember how my closest friend then left the school when we were being promoted to the senior class and was supposed to join the other boys at the main campus. The fear of bullying made him change schools, which was the story of many of us back then.

Now, one who has been intimidated whether physically or online and doesn't have or grow a thick skin to these and ends up having any or all of these as issues in their life will most likely not have a normal life and this in turn cuts short a potential addition to making the world better because when all hands are on deck, it makes the work easier meaning, if all humans function to the best of their abilities without any limitations, in this case, bullying, then everyone will give in their best to living and the world will be a better place.

This is to say that, whether physical or online, bullying has the same effects on people and should be treated in the same way. You can't tell the extent to which bullying can affect any fragile human, so whether online or physically, it still has effects and, as such, should be treated the same.

There is no competition to see who feels the pain the most, whether a person is being harassed physically or online; both have a psychological impact, and it affects them mentally. When bullying is not checked in schools for instance, the full potential of that child might not be utilized by the individual, there is always a psychological effect to it, which is also the same with the online bullying, stop one from getting bullied or having checks for bullying doesn’t only save an individual, it saves the societies from losing people with kind heart, brilliant minds and an innovative mind in the long run.

Thank you for reading. My name is Hive account@rishagamo, and this is my response to the Hive Learners weekly Featured Content Week 214 Episode 01: “ONLINE VS PHYSICAL”.