Treating bullying as everyone's problem reduces incidence in primary schools

I always found it really frustrating that a "zero tolerance" policy to bullying seemed to disproportionately affect people who eventually fight back.

I would guess it's a combination of "nobody sees the first hit" (since your attention is elsewhere, of course) and that bullies get quite good at testing boundaries and thus know how to avoid detection.

But, really, it's truly frustrating that as I child I was bullied relentlessly, and when I finally took my parents advice and stood my ground, I was expelled from school (due to zero tolerance). Those bullies continued to torment some other kids, of course.

This is far from an uncommon situation, over the years I've heard many more scenarios like this.

I was also expelled for fighting back. This was how I learned that documentation is important in life.

When I got the paperwork saying I was out, my parents sent back all the correspondence with the school, the dates the bully bothered me, and the responses (or lack thereof) from the school. I was reinstated and the bully went to another district.

Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media. It's genuinely terrifying. I don't wonder why many teens are anxious. Everything they do is documented.

> Bullying in my day was at least bearable because it was confined to times when I was physically near the bully. Kids today have it so much worse with social media.

I don't get it. Anything a bully can do to you over social media, they can also do to you without using the internet at all. Anything they needed to be near you to do, they still need to be near you to do.

There's twice as much surface area. Bullies can now do their thing 24/7 from behind the screen _and_ still physically torment.

Again, whatever they can do from behind a screen now, they could also do in your absence before.

No, they couldn’t.

Just a single obvious example: What tools did they have to broadcast photoshopped images of you to all of your peers?

I dont mean to be nasty, but what sort of turbo nerds are bullying you if they decide to Photoshop images. Back in my day, bullying was about repeatedly keeping people out of the ingroup until they internalized their otherness. It was opportunistic. We didn't plan elaborate scenarios, we called him gay when he spoke about something he cared about. That was enough.

If anything, social media would give that kid more opportunities to find a group that will accept them.