Facts about Peer Pressure
Adolescents are influenced by the experiences and relationships they have in their community with their family and their peers. Peer pressure is a very harsh tool that friends and other their age to use in order to coax them into smoking, drinking, or doing other drugs. It’s a social institution that modifies adolescents’ behaviors by making them indulge in risky behaviors such as drugs. Peer pressure on tobacco use, some studies indicates that 55% of tobacco use is influenced by going through peer pressure and seeing the people around you doing it all the time. Most student smokers on Campus and everywhere in the constitute people that snub normal moral values set by families and society, but are happy to obey and conform strictly to the values of their peer group. Educators report that peer pressure can more subtly affect everything, from appearance and language to grades-width students are sometimes rejecting their own academic work to fit in with the people that constantly do it.
With peer pressure come addiction, if you try a drug and happen to like it, you won’t want to stop doing it and that there will cause a lifetime addiction problems. Although some parents think that peer pressure is the reason for teens trying or constantly doing drugs, 79% say that they only do it because it makes them “feel good”, 69% say that it helps them forget all their problems. The average age for teen girls drinking is only 13 years old, according to studies by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is the most common drug used by 12 to 17 years old. When teens experiment with drugs or alcohol it could very much become a problem and a bad habit, and when teens are doing it every day is when their p...
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Peer pressure is a risky situation that could happen in anyone’s life, it’s not something anyone should go through. Nobody should be pressured into do something they don’t want to, even if they know that it aren’t that bad. Trying something that you like, you’ll want to do it over and over again, and that will lead to addiction. As children grow, develop and move into early adolescence, involvement with one’s peers and the attraction of peer identification increases. Some teens give into peer pressure because they want to feel liked by their peers, to fit in or because they worry that other kids may make fun of them if they don’t go along with the group. Taking risks can seem really fun and exciting – and some risks can be good for you. The trick is to take those chances that tech you something new or make you a better person.
Of the various possible causes for drug abuse, peer pressure is one of the main reasons young people indulge in recreational drugs. In fact, according to David Sheff,
One of the most important reasons of teenage drug usage is peer pressure. Peer pressure makes drugs seem popular, makes you have a fear of being an outcast, and since everyone is doing it, it is the "cool" thing to do…right? Wrong. Peer pressure represents social influences that effect adolescents, it can have a positive, or a negative effect, depending on person's social group and one can follow one path of the other. We are greatly influenced by the people around us. In today's colleges, drugs are very common; peer pressure usually is the reason for their usage (www.nodrugs.com 1). If the people in your social group use drugs, there will be pressure a direct or indirect pressure from them. A person may be offered to try drugs, which is direct pressure. Indirect pressure is when someone sees everyone around him using drugs and he might think that there is noth...
One article that covers the results of a national survey states that ¡§Adolescents¡¦ levels of alcohol and drug use have been found to be strongly associated with peers¡¦ use. However, other studies have shown that a student¡¦s drinking was more strongly influenced by how much he or she thought close friends drank than by perceptions of the extent of use by students in general¡¨(Results 2). This is a statement that I can agree with because growing up I have watched many young people become greatly influenced by their friends. Now a days the phrase ¡§peer pressure¡¨ concentrates on pressure from a direct group of friends rather than a students peers as a whole. Another reason the article gives for the cause of Binge Drinking is that ¡§Students who perceive that more drinking occurs than actually does provide themselves with an excuse for drinking more because ¡¥everyone is doing it¡¦¡¨ (Results 2). Everyone knows that most youngsters want what every other kid has, this idea relates in the...
Peer pressure is doing something that is not quite normal, but your friends pressure you into the situation because they do it. This definition of peer pressure is something that is always happening, especially with the world changing each day. Things like tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, are all possibilities that peer pressure is related to. However, in the texts “Shooting and Elephant” by George Orwell and “No Witchcraft for Sale” by Doris Lessing demonstrate peer pressure among many thing; however, there are many solutions resulting in good things compared to the bad things that have happened. Solutions to peer pressure in these texts could be many things, but the three that would work best would be: ignore the person, walk away, and lastly, know that you should not do anything you do not feel comfortable with.
Although the DARE program argues that peer pressure is a major cause of teen drug use, my friend was not pressured by his peers to try heroin. Therefore, the DARE program pushes the message that students should resist peer pressure to try drugs, but according to Sarah Glazer, a staff writer for the CQ Researcher, this tactic "may have little impact in a society where drug experimentation is a normal but not necessarily fatal part of adolescence" (Glazer).
Most people do not understand how a person become addicted to drugs. We tend to assume that is more an individual problem rather than a social problem. However, teen substance abuse is indeed a social problem considered a priority for the USA department of public health due to 9 out of 10 Americans with addictions started using drugs before the age 18 (CASA Columbia University). Similarly, 1 in 4 Americans with addictions started using the substance during their teenage years, which show a significant different with 1 in 25 Americans with addiction who started using at 21 or older (CASA, 2011).
When an individual take on the behaviors, attitudes, and styles of their peers because of the pressure of fitting in, this is peer conformity, also known as peer pressure. In most cultures the amount of time we spend with our peers tends to increase, as well as the effect they provide for support. Peer influence can start as soon as the third grade for some an...
... instead of following the majority. The issue of peer pressure can relate to teens, as they are in constant pressure to be ‘cool’ or to be in the ‘in’ group. It does not really promote individualism, so people cannot develop their own ideas but rather follow the leader of their group.
Alert! Alert! We 've all seen it on TV shows and in the movies: a good kid with a good home and a good family life, but questionable friends. Soon enough, the kid is going out every night smoking, doing drugs, and partying. Every parenting book on the planet, it seems, has a section similar to this with warnings all over about how to save your child from the harmful, gripping effects of peer pressure. This all promotes the idea that peer pressure is damaging to school-children and teenagers. As a whole, society has become obsessed with individuals making decisions for themselves, so much so that we 've been trained to hear alarm bells when we think of peer pressure. However, though it is usually connoted as a negative influence, peer pressure perpetuates many positive qualities within a number of social situations.
Peer pressure is the influence from members of one’s peer group. Peer pressure affect many school aged children, and teenager, because of the desire to want to fit in. Affects of giving into peer pressure can lead to taking drugs, drinking alcohol, and having sex. By researching
Teenagers become caught up with following peers, because the decision is made to become involved in experimental activities by choice. On the other hand, peer pressure in teens can allow mature growth in the student, because the individual can them become a leader within an environment in a positive manner. According to kidshealth.org, “Getting to know lots of different people-
When you are a teenager and you have friends that ask you to do something for them and you do not then they get mad. Then think you are a loser and that is ever person's nightmare, to not be liked. Peer pressure is no piece of cake. It is like choosing the wrong thing for what you think is right at that very moment, and then regretting it afterwards, because your parents find out. But most would not care about what they do wrong or right. Unless there is a chance of parental disappointment, and a lot of the time that is the case.
" County High School is a perfect example of how teenagers deal with peer pressure. Being at High School for approximately a year, I have noticed all the fads, trends, and crazes High goes through. A massive issue with peer pressure is teen smoking and sexuality. I am highly agreeable that social pressures lead people to buy cigarettes and drugs, if it was up to the person I think drugs wouldn't even be in their mind.
For some people peer pressure may come from you directly, this may be because you are feeling different than everyone else even if they are not suggesting you join. Other times groups of friends can have certain activities and habits they do together. If you find that hanging out with people who tend to do things you wouldn't normally do and you feel unaccepted unless you follow through, "get out" so you don't fall into the pressure to "fit in"
Drug abuse is an illustration of the dangerous effects that peer pressure has on adolescents. There are many problems with substance overuse, but the biggest one is addiction. When a group indulges themselves into substance overuse, the new members have to do the same. However, when it comes to addiction, no one is responsible for anybody else. According to Lamsaouri, “the cause of substance over use among peers is that everyone else is using it and there is no problem to use it” (qtd in Jayanthi 184). This is the answer for all the adolescents that are caught overusing drugs and other banned