How Peer Pressure Makes Decisions for Us

 It was a rainy night late in a small town in Arizona. As an average teenager staying out late and not making the best choices is a thing most expected, but that night things were taken a bit too far. A group of friends came up with the idea of drag racing. The boy was asked to participate multiple times, but he kept declining the suggestion, his conscious was telling him it was not a good idea.

The other friends continued pressuring until it got the best of him. The nervous teen boy sat anxiously in the driver’s seat with sweaty palms. Engines were started and before he could blink the gas was pushed and off he went at top speeds soaring across the slick pavement. Before the boy knew, it everything froze as the two vehicles collided with such force that both drivers were instantly killed all because of  peer pressure taking over. Most people would call them naive teens not realizing how much of an affect it is taking over society.

Peer pressure has been an ignored problem in this day and age. Most people don’t realize how easy it is for people to give in. It can happen in so many forms and any time. It can be from a friend saying to steal someones candy to someone convincing a peer to drink at a party, even though they know it’s not the right thing to do they do it anyways hoping to fit in and become well liked. Statistics show that 38 percent of individuals between the ages 15 and 24 say they have been pressured  to drink alcohol, 32 percent reported being pressured into intimacy, 27 percent reported being pressured to do drugs, and 24 percent reported being pressured to smoke cigarettes. A lot of different people can be influenced to the unnoticed problem. 

“I think it could come from  friends, most of them could be toxic people and you might not even notice that”, Ashley Rodriguez (9) said. Many people give in to peer pressure from there friends because they fear appearing “uncool”. If they fall into peer pressure, they have to convince themselves that they are making the right decision. However, it is up to the individual being pressure weather or not they will give in.

Peer pressure is found to be more common in teenagers. For most people when they were young their parents choose who they hung out with but as they grow up into your teen life they began to choose their own friends. It All depends on the friend group you choose. As many know e-cigarettes has become a worldwide epidemic. Many teenagers share how they were pressured into trying e-cigarettes out from other friends. Pressure is known to be one of the main causes into people trying it and passing the idea down to others. The e-cigarettes are resulting into deaths and many illnesses for teens. 
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“It can be hard to say no even though you want to because other people are doing it,” Morgan Ossman (9) said. 
 Being a teenager can be hard and on top of it being pressured for things can be hard to handle and say no too. For a teenager resisting is the key thing. At many times the peer pressure can become so overwhelming even if its negative and self harming. “ Peer Pressure can be so powerful even if you don’t want to do it,” said  Madison Lagasse (9). 

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