Bullying harms kids’ mental health
In identical twin study, targeted kids more likely to develop depression

This was on the front page of MSNBC this morning. The article goes on to say that by studying twins, researchers have determined that kids who are bullied have more depression and anxiety. No shit, really? Was it necessary to perform a study on this? Of course kids who are bullied have more anxiety. If you had to go to work every day and have one of your bigger co-workers who probably makes more money than you, tease you about your measly paycheck or your cube in the basement, wouldn’t you have more anxiety and depression?

Who pays for these studies? This one took place in the UK but the US has plenty of stupid studies going on. “Americans are getting fatter!” Do we really need a group of PhDs telling us this? All you have to do is go to the mall to figure this one out. “Multi-tasking makes you less efficient.” Hmmm… I can do one thing and give it all my attention or I can do five things at once and give each task 1/5 of my attention. I wonder which task will be more effectively performed?

Instead of studying twins to see if they become depressed or anxious because some obnoxious kid is pounding on them, let’s do a study to see if a teacher or parent stops the bullying then the anxious kid might be able to calm down.

Let’s stop paying for these stupid studies so we can pay our teachers a living wage and then maybe they can police the school yards better or maybe teach the students that they shouldn’t pick on each other.