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I can not state that the article is wrong, but I will provide one anecdote against the article. Virtually all of the bullying I have experienced and witnessed h

I can not state that the article is wrong, but I will provide one anecdote against the article. Virtually all of the bullying I have experienced and witnessed has occurred between bullies on a high social ladder and bullied on a low social ladder. I feel like there is a wide misconception that "most bullying occurs among peers", as the headline of this article claims. It's a very convenient idea, because it frees adults from a lot of responsibility. "Boys will be boys" and "they are just bullying each other", like it's no big deal, so adults, conveniently, don't have to do much about it. This kind of messaging is very harmful, because it enables the bullying to continue, often for years, and in many cases ending in death. Furthermore, it's not only harmful, it's (based on my experiences) false.

pavel_lishin 6y ago
Yeah. Tossing more subjective examples into the anecdote bucket: I certainly don't remember being bullied by people I thought of as peers in terms of the social ladder - but the people "higher up" on the social ladder sure loved to shit downhill on us.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  Opposite of my high school experience. People in different social strata mostly ignored each other.
  - pavel_lishin 6y ago
    I wonder if it's a size thing - my high school had fewer than 500 people, and was semi-rural.
plaidfuji 6y ago
The article isn’t suggesting that peer-bullying is the only source, just that it’s more prevalent. So your experience is not invalidated by this study. It is also not saying that adults are free from responsibility for addressing this. It is simply saying that existing anti-bullying programs are bound to be ineffective until they broaden their scope to include this category.
- baobabKoodaa 6y ago
  > The article isn’t suggesting that peer-bullying is the only source, just that it’s more prevalent. Right. And I'm saying that - based on my experiences - peer-bullying is not prevalent at all. I understand that "my experiences" do not constitute a peer-reviewed study, so take it with however many grains of salt you feel is appropriate. But don't pretend like I can't disagree with the article based on my experience. > It is also not saying that adults are free from responsibility for addressing this. Right, it's not explicitly saying that adults are free from responsibility, it's just implying that most instances of bullying fall into the "boys will be boys" category rather than a more serious category. And if you observe how adults are mostly reacting to instances of bullying in practice, they certainly don't feel like they have much responsibility to stop bullying. So we can observe a message being sent, received, and acted upon.
vmception 6y ago
How did you get that from the article at all? The point of the article is to say that the current anti-bullying measures are inadequate because of a common structure of bullying which is not currently being addressed. Your anecdote is what popular attempts at curbing bullying have been trying to address. Nobody is saying to excuse it or free adults from responsibility.
- baobabKoodaa 6y ago
  > Your anecdote is what popular attempts at curbing bullying have been trying to address. Popular where? At least the popular anti-bullying attempts in Finland assume that there's "2 sides to the story" and seek to find fault in the bullied party. Maybe you live in a country with different anti-bullying programs? > Nobody is saying to excuse it or free adults from responsibility. Let's just say we strongly disagree on that point.
  - vmception 6y ago
    So did you go further than the title of the article because you made it seem like you actually read it? It is entertaining to give people a venue to explain themselves and they reveal the weakness of their own arguments.
    - baobabKoodaa 6y ago
      > So did you go further than the title of the article because you made it seem like you actually read it? It is entertaining to give people a venue to explain themselves and they reveal the weakness of their own arguments. Oh yeah? Why don't you care to explain the "weakness of my own arguments"? You made the claim that popular anti-bullying programs specifically address high-to-low bullying. I disputed this claim, asked which region you are referring to, and explained that in Finland the popular anti-bullying programs don't work like this - instead they assume bullying mostly occurs "among peers" like this article suggests. Instead of answering which region / anti-bullying programs you are referring to, or perhaps disputing my description of Finnish anti-bullying programs, you simply imply I didn't read the article [which is false & against HN rules & not relevant to this question since the article does not address it] and just laugh at me. Sure.

pavel_lishin 6y ago

Yeah. Tossing more subjective examples into the anecdote bucket: I certainly don't remember being bullied by people I thought of as peers in terms of the social ladder - but the people "higher up" on the social ladder sure loved to shit downhill on us.

throwawayboise 6y ago
Opposite of my high school experience. People in different social strata mostly ignored each other.
- pavel_lishin 6y ago
  I wonder if it's a size thing - my high school had fewer than 500 people, and was semi-rural.

plaidfuji 6y ago

The article isn’t suggesting that peer-bullying is the only source, just that it’s more prevalent. So your experience is not invalidated by this study. It is also not saying that adults are free from responsibility for addressing this. It is simply saying that existing anti-bullying programs are bound to be ineffective until they broaden their scope to include this category.

baobabKoodaa 6y ago
> The article isn’t suggesting that peer-bullying is the only source, just that it’s more prevalent. Right. And I'm saying that - based on my experiences - peer-bullying is not prevalent at all. I understand that "my experiences" do not constitute a peer-reviewed study, so take it with however many grains of salt you feel is appropriate. But don't pretend like I can't disagree with the article based on my experience. > It is also not saying that adults are free from responsibility for addressing this. Right, it's not explicitly saying that adults are free from responsibility, it's just implying that most instances of bullying fall into the "boys will be boys" category rather than a more serious category. And if you observe how adults are mostly reacting to instances of bullying in practice, they certainly don't feel like they have much responsibility to stop bullying. So we can observe a message being sent, received, and acted upon.

vmception 6y ago

How did you get that from the article at all? The point of the article is to say that the current anti-bullying measures are inadequate because of a common structure of bullying which is not currently being addressed. Your anecdote is what popular attempts at curbing bullying have been trying to address. Nobody is saying to excuse it or free adults from responsibility.

baobabKoodaa 6y ago
> Your anecdote is what popular attempts at curbing bullying have been trying to address. Popular where? At least the popular anti-bullying attempts in Finland assume that there's "2 sides to the story" and seek to find fault in the bullied party. Maybe you live in a country with different anti-bullying programs? > Nobody is saying to excuse it or free adults from responsibility. Let's just say we strongly disagree on that point.
- vmception 6y ago
  So did you go further than the title of the article because you made it seem like you actually read it? It is entertaining to give people a venue to explain themselves and they reveal the weakness of their own arguments.
  - baobabKoodaa 6y ago
    > So did you go further than the title of the article because you made it seem like you actually read it? It is entertaining to give people a venue to explain themselves and they reveal the weakness of their own arguments. Oh yeah? Why don't you care to explain the "weakness of my own arguments"? You made the claim that popular anti-bullying programs specifically address high-to-low bullying. I disputed this claim, asked which region you are referring to, and explained that in Finland the popular anti-bullying programs don't work like this - instead they assume bullying mostly occurs "among peers" like this article suggests. Instead of answering which region / anti-bullying programs you are referring to, or perhaps disputing my description of Finnish anti-bullying programs, you simply imply I didn't read the article [which is false & against HN rules & not relevant to this question since the article does not address it] and just laugh at me. Sure.