Peer Pressure: Hurting the Youth
By Justine Sciremammano
Imagine this, your'e on the playground with your friends and you want to play tag with some of the other kids, but in order to play they say you have to take the answers to next test off the teacher's desk. What would you do? Peer pressure negatively affects the choices kids and teens make and puts them at a high risk.
An experiment was conducted at Temple University to see if kids, grown ups, college students, and teenagers would take more risks if they knew their friends were watching in the next room. Half the time, the people playing a driving game knew their friend was watching, and the other half, they thought no one was watching. When it came to adults and college students, there were no major differences with risk taking, regardless of whether they know their friend was watching or not (Parker-Pope). Teenagers however, ran about 40% more yellow lights and got into about 60% more car accidents when they knew their friend was watching (Parker-Pope). Kids and teenagers feel the need to show off in front of their friends because they want their friends to think highly of them. The regions of the brain associated with reward showed greater activity when they were playing in view of their friends. "It was as if the presence of friends, even in the next room, prompted the brains reward system to ignore any warning signals about risk" (Parker-Pope). When teenagers are around their friends they feel pressured to do things, that they wouldn't normally do, to make them look cool and fit in.
When it comes to teenagers, they will do virtually anything to fit in. It is hard to overestimate the importance of peer pressure because, to kids, peers are everything. All of the "Just Say No" slogans are not enough to make teens realize that peer pressure is dangerous(Rubin and Taylor). As kids make the journey from child or teenager, they create a social identity to forge their personal identity, according to the article "Teenagers Admit Drug Peer Pressure". They create this identity to make other people believe that they are cool and fit in. Almost half of children questioned said that the need to fit in with social group dictated how their friends act (Teenagers Admit Drug Peer Pressure). When kids want to fit in with the group to seem cool, they act different than they normally would to make that person or group like them.
Driving in a car alone can be very dangerous, but when you add a few friends, it can be very distracting and even more dangerous. Data was collected, and it suggests that teenage boys take more risks when there are one or more boys are in the car with them, but drive more carefully if they are with a romantic interest (Parker-Pope). This is because they try to impress their friends to seem cool, but want to keep their romantic interest safe. Having your friends in the car with you makes the ride fun, but the risks definitely outweigh the benefits. If you have a kid, who you think of as mature and able to use good judgment based on your experience when you are with them, that doesn't necessarily mean that's how they behave in a group of friends (Parker-Pope). So, if they are driving with you and obey all of the rules of the road, they might run red lights or stop signs just because their friends are with them.
Some people might argue that peer pressure encourages people to join clubs or teams or get good grades. However, peer pressure causes people to take more risks that can be life threatening. For example, the need to fit in with a social group can influence participating in dangerous activities. If they continue to be around that type of behavior they will start to see it as normal, and think that they should do it too.
Peer pressure puts kids and teens at risk and negatively affects their behavior and decisions. The importance of peer pressure is hard to overestimate. Kids and teens are at even more risk because they don't understand how dangerous peer pressure can be. Just telling kids how dangerous peer pressure is doesn't make them understand the dangers, so we need to do more to be able to truly help.