Band 6+: Young people are often influenced in their behaviours and situations by others in the same age. This is called “peer pressure”. Do the disadvantages of peer pressure outweigh the advantages?

The youth is often influenced by their peers in their basic behaviour and situations. This peer pressure could be harmful for them in various ways, while having certain benefits to it. All the reasons for my stance are elaborated in the following paragraphs.

Peer pressure is harmful for the young population in many ways. Firstly, peer pressure makes people set goals that are unattainable by them. Because of these goals, they work very hard to achieve them, often leading to no rewards in return. Additionally, bad peer pressure makes the individuals caught up in activities that are either illegal or not good for their well being. For example, being around smokers makes people also try smoking and often people tend to get addicted to it.

Furthermore, unnecessary pressure surrounding a person also deteriorates their mental health. Individuals can get depressed because of the peer pressure they are always under. Besides this, there is a great chance of them getting in unwanted competition among their colleagues, which leads to decrease in efficiency and increase in angst among them. When two co-workers, for instance, focus on being better than the other and not focus on team work, the output of work decreases.

However, there are also certain benefits of peer pressure. First and foremost, peer pressure among students improves the focus of an individual on their work, as they will be encouraged to be better then others and help them achieve a better grade. Moreover, peer pressure gives people the push they need to be better in their respective field. For example, when an individual does not have any better person than them in their field, they become very safe and tend to grow slowly, but when there is some peer better or equal to them, there is always a want to become the best.

In conclusion, although there are many benefits of peer pressure, the drawbacks like non-achievable goals and poor mental health cannot be ignored. People should not get pressured by their peers and should learn to work in a group to improve quality among all of them.