Generally speaking, bullying is between parties of different power, which can come from social status, age, group size, and other factors. Thus, victims often develop a sense of powerlessness against the aggressor as the victims struggle to protect themselves (Arya, 2021). These mental issues and the normalization of abuse lead to even more bullying, as the perpetrators and victims attempt to cope with it in unhealthy ways. Consequently, bullying has become severe enough for many countries to consider it a public health and safety risk. The particular effects covered in this section are depression, suicidal attempts, becoming a perpetrator, poor academic achievement as well as insomnia.
One of the most common mental health illnesses for both adolescent victims and assailants is depression. The abuse and power imbalance cause a sense of helplessness in victims. This emotion and repeated physical and physiological trauma from the abuse form the foundations of mental health issues in the later years. Furthermore, according to research, bullying victims have a delayed impact on depressive disorder in addition to its immediate impact (Stapinski et al., 2014). Naveed et al. (2019) conducted a cross-sectional study of students ages 10-17 in Nawabshah, Pakistan. They surveyed both victims and perpetrators of bullying and found both groups to experience “adverse emotional and social consequences” (Naveed et al., 2019, p. 1). Therefore, depressive symptoms are a severe effect of peer victimization that serves as a catalyst for further emerging problems, such as suicide attempts and ideation.
Teen suicide is a devastating worldwide public health issue that affects young people, and it frequently occurs as a result of persistent bullying. Shireen et al. (2014) observed that adolescent bullying victims are 2 to 9 times more likely than non-victims to ponder suicide and self-harm. Additionally, a few research revealed that conventional bullying exclusively affects female suicidal ideation (Bauman et al., 2013). Bullying becomes more debilitating and destructive the more often it occurs. A depressed kid has emotions of melancholy and loneliness. Unfortunately, many victims of bullying lose interest in their hobbies, blame themselves for everything terrible that occurs in their immediate environment, and believe that life is not worth living. Violence and aggressiveness are ways that some young people are subject to bullying to express their feelings, and at this time, evidently, they may be more susceptible to suicide or harmful impulses. Thus, the majority of teenage suicide attempts can be linked to the effects of repetitive bullying incidents on its victims.
Bullying has the potential to result in a wide variety of physical problems for adolescents, among which is insomnia. For instance, numerous studies have linked teenage sleeping issues to peer victimization. According to Lepore & Kliewer (2013), peer victimization can cause anxiety and rumination, which makes it difficult to relieve stress and go to sleep. Nonetheless, it has been discovered that sleep issues are linked to decreased academic performance, depression, behavioral issues, and suicide (Woznica et al., 2015). According to the findings of the current study, children who experience bullying reveal more sleeping issues than youngsters who do not experience peer victimization (Van Geel et al., 2016). In comparison to other consequences like suicidal behavior, sleep issues could appear as a relatively trivial issue. This evidence is particularly valuable since insomnia is a severe issue that affects teenagers and has a variety of far-reaching harmful effects. As a result, insomnia is one of the effects that peer victimization has on adolescents who suffer from it and consequently can lead to poor academic performance.
Bullying frequently causes victims to lose out on educational chances, which lowers the caliber of their education and, as a result, their academic achievement. In this regard, research from around the world suggests that schools, and particularly the school environment, seem to have a significant impact on academic performance. As a result, adolescent victims of bullying oftentimes cannot take full advantage of their educational opportunities throughout their time in school. According to Van der Werf (2014), who studied high school adolescents in Colombia, more frequent bullying has a detrimental long-term impact on each student’s academic achievement. A rise of one variance in the average degree of bullying lowers a student’s test performance, especially when considering potential biases. Therefore, being bullied frequently results in an overall decline in adolescents’ academic performance.
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