Peer pressure is the pressure, stress, or strain that you feel from friends or others around you to act or behave in a certain way. Others around you can pressure you into drinking and getting drunk.
Friends can pressure you into experimenting with drugs. Mates can pressure you into sex. Peer pressure takes away from individualism and forces a person to act or think like the group of people around them. Drinking is a common peer pressure. At parties or at other social occasions, drinking is an often activity which has been accepted by today’s society.
Although many people do not want to drink, they still drink just to fit in with others and to have a common ground with somebody new they are meeting. People often believe getting drunk is fun, and makes a party more exciting, and this thought entices more people to drink. Drinking is most often peer pressured and people should maintain their right to not drink. Experimenting with drugs is a common peer pressure amongst teenagers. The most common drug used by teenagers is marijuana, which is considered the ‘gateway’ drug. Smoking marijuana can most often lead to the use of more ‘hardcore’ drugs.
Being pressured into trying drugs is a very awkward situation, refusing the drug could make the person feel like they are not fitting in, or not accepted. But knowing that drugs can negatively affect a person’s body should be enough reason to make the refusal worth it. Sex is becoming a more and more pressured act by today’s youth. People believe having sex makes a person cool, and more mature.
Only person’s who are mature enough to deal with the consequences of sex should do it. Having sex doesn’t make a person appear more mature, being able to say ‘no’ makes them more mature. Only person’s who are in a serious, mature, honest relationship and know they can accept the responsibility of sex should do it. Peer pressure is practiced unknowingly in all communities, especially amongst teenagers.People who allow themselves to become peer pressured lose individuality. Having the ability to say ‘no’ shows that a person has respect for himself and, in turn, gains the respect of others around him. Peer pressure can be used for almost anything, but when it’s for the wrong things is when it becomes stressful because of the fear of being rejected for saying ‘no’.
The practice of peer pressure will be used by all people, but knowing when to say ‘no’ is the most important aspect.
