Bystanders

.Many of us have experienced the frightening position of being a bystander, whether we were witnessing a fight in school, or a crime out on the streets. However, Most of us are unaware of how to respond to what we have seen. Is it our duty to intervene? Or keep to ourselves? Although it may seem the situation is none of your business, when not intervening you are actually becoming part of the problem and are just as guilty as the bully or criminal. However direct intervention isn’t always the solution, sometimes it is more effective to tell an adult.

. There are many of bullying scenarios where a bystander’s role may require different actions to take place. For example if you are witnessing verbal bullying in the school hallway, as a bystander it would be the appropriate to step in and attempt to end it. This is a situation where not intervening would make you just as bad as the bully themselves. When physical violence is involved stepping in directly is a dangerous action, and puts you at risk. That is not an excuse for you to not intervene at all, but it should not be done the same as simple verbal bullying in the hallway. This would be a time where mentioning what you saw to the police or a teacher would be appropriate and harmless towards yourself, as well as the victim. Stepping in directly could result in a more dangerous situation for the victim, as well as yourself.

Direct bullying is a tough situation for a bystander because it requires them to act under pressure, and fairly quickly. Whereas Cyber bullying gives a bystander many options on how to react. For example they can disagree with the comments being made, encourage friends to log in and do the same, or report what they have seen to the site security team. Of course they risk the bully turning around and doing the same thing to them, but it all comes down to what you are willing to do for another person.

. It’s true that people who intervene in an emergency may be putting