Perez​1

Mia Perez 

English 2 

Prof. Workman 

4/13/20 

Peer Pressure 

Peer pressure can influence the choices teens make during middle school and high school.   

During these years a teenager's brain is still developing so they are typically easier to influence than 

someone who’s brain is fully developed. Outside influences that can sway a teenagers decision 

include social media, other students at school, television, movies, and music. Some of these 

modalities make alcohol and drugs appear “cool”. It is also during this time when teens are still 

trying to discover themselves as a person, trying to fit in.  

With the influences that surround students, it can make it difficult for them to push it off and 

go on with their day without thinking about it again. Fitting into a social group can also influence a 

teenagers decision sometimes without them knowing about it. During this time in their lives all 

students want to do is fit in and try to get through school as easily as possible while having as much 

fun as they can with the people that surround them.  

Home life and the way a person is brought up can affect their decisions as well. The people 

students live with will be there every single day of their lives until they leave. While staying with 

these people they will begin to feel like the things that their family members do is normal and okay 

in society. While this is still happening every day in schools, school faculty should take more 

precaution into making every effort to make sure to stop students from taking part in peer 

pressuring others to use drugs and alcohol.  

 Perez​2
 

One of the ways that kids can be influenced into doing drugs or drinking alcohol is social 

media. For example, Jacquelyn Ekern was talking about something in her article of a section talking 

about how a lot of the photos or videos of drugs on the internet are sent through Facebook, 

Instagram, and Sanpchat every minute. The article mentions, “...photos often depict drinking beer, 

smoking weed—any number of unhealthy, and often illegal activities under the guise of “partying”... 

in the teen’s subconscious mind, the drink or drug is inextricably linked with incredible 

enjoyment,”(9-10).  

This means that if social media exposes kids to this fake representation of drugs then there is a 

higher chance of these students getting into drugs and alcohol because it looks like “fun”. That 

whole situation is taken lightly and these kids don’t understand the consequences of addiction of 

maybe even overdosing. 

 
 Perez​3
 

In today's generation of highschoolers, they use social media every day looking at new posts 

or videos of others doing these things while making it look like they’re having the time of their lives. 

A lot of this pressure to do these things comes from entertainment influencers, and once they show 

students something those students want to show their friends and then the chain keeps growing 

because the person these actions are coming from makes it look like this is the next thing that will 

go viral with likes and great comments. Everything on social media is on there to get good reviews 

back and with good reviews comes crazy amounts of attention.  

With attention comes peer pressure, and when everybody has their eyes on someone, that 

someone feels like they have to make the people around them proud or happy that they have 

accomplished corrupting someone else’s life. Students experience this every day at school because 

of everybody else going to school with them. Erica Smith writes about what students go through, 

“This is also a time when adolescents are testing their limits as they try to establish their own 

identity. When someone in a group of adolescents begins using substances, it can become a 

trickle-down effect as someone else joins him or her, and then another joins them, and so on,”(2). 

This shows how easy students can get involved with drugs and alcohol and most likely get other 

people involved as well. Just like what Smith said in her article it is like a trickle-down effect or 

maybe even a domino effect and if enough students get involved it would be hard for them to 

concentrate on their school work and future. Drugs and alcohol can cause a disturbance in one’s 

life, it is as if they pushed the pause button and can not push play to continue once they get 

addicted. 

 
 Perez​4
Another way students are introduced to drugs and other things is television and movies. 

When young adults watch a movie or a show that exposes the to drugs and alcohol, especially when 

the movie or show they are watching to has a lot of attention from their peers, can influence them 

into thinking that the things they do are popular and will get themselves more attention from their 

friends or others they want attention from. In the article ​Peer Pressure of Drinking​, it shows just 

how many kids from ages 12-17 are willing to try alcohol just because their peers are doing it on 

commercials. The article states, “...teens between the ages of 12 and 17 who saw their peers 

“partying” on social media were more likely to then do the same. These images often portray 

people having a good time, and surveyed teens who saw them were more than three times as likely 

to try alcohol.”(11) This gives more evidence that teens are under the influence of the media and 

what they see on everyday things that come on television.  

Movies and television alone can influence a teenagers perspective on drugs. A lot of movies 

do shine the light on more popular drugs like marajuwana or cocaine. Anyone can get access to 

these movies on Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, etc. Nowadays kids are stuck on electronics and have access to 

anything on the internet. It’s really only a matter of time before one kid comes across a movie or a 

video that shows how much fun drugs can be, and it only takes one to share the video or 

recommend it to other friends and then they can pass it on too. So, not only are kids being 

influenced on television alone they don't even have to try to access those kinds of things anymore. 

Not only are students being influenced today with more exposure from the media, but they have 

been for many years now. Ages from 14-20 or even older have always been the age group to 

determine what is now considered popular for that time period.  

 
 Perez​5
As the generation of kids turning into young adults do determine what is popular, one of 

those things would be music. Music today does have an important part in influencing students in 

what they should or shouldn’t do. The reason being is that they listen to that kind of music most 

likely everyday either when relaxing or even doing something else to help concentrate. Music like 

rap, hip-pop, and rock do talk about the struggles of addiction to drugs or the urges to drink, but 

students do not think that way about the negative aspect of these action they only see what they 

want which is that drinking and drugs are fun and they should follow in the footsteps of their 

favorite artist.  

Even though these artists who make this kind of music do not intend on pushing students to 

do this, they still manage to do so. Kids right now just don’t see the true meaning in what these 

artists are trying to say probably because they can’t comprehend it to what the artists are truly 

saying. Once students get the idea in their head that they should follow through with what they are 

wanting to try, they don’t typically want to do it on their own. Then they get the idea to include 

other people to try things with them and go through it together. 

So many things can go wrong when someone includes others to try things like alcohol and 

drugs. Things like addiction are really bad to go through alone and once someone as young as a 

student in highschool gets addicted to drugs or alcohol they have side effects like change in 

behavior, change in priorities, and changes in education accomplishments. A student could be the 

perfect person in school and at home but once they get addicted to something as bad as drugs and 

alcohol their grades can go down the drain and their priorities go to feeding their addiction instead 

of school or family.  

 
 Perez​6
 

Once they lose sight of everything important to them like in school their grades tend to drop 

and they start to become a bad example of a student which can change any good impressions from 

teachers to bad ones immediately. With this new feeling a stress they might have already pushed 

away the people that would help them in this type of situation. With no one's help they would 

probably go towards the only thing that would comfort them, which is their addiction. 

Other influences include home life where the student 90% of their time. That is more than 

enough time to show students things that would lead to them using drugs and alcohol. The way a 

kid is brought up can make this sort of thing appear normal to them. It doesn’t really help if their 

parents are heavy drinkers or use drugs. Their environment or even their parents can be using or 

abusing substances as a part of everyday life.  

  

Usually if the students start to follow in their parents footsteps no one would stop them 

because their environment does it too. Kids can easily find or even already know where they can 

easily gain access to their parents pill cabinets and potentially steal any medical drugs they can find. 

Jacquelyn Ekern writes, “Today, pills are ubiquitous, frequently prescribed to family members with 

a host of refills. Young people know the next high is easily found in the parents’ medicine 

cabinet...a bottle of pills is easily tucked away in a pocket.”(14-15). The article shows that it’s easier 

to hide and get away with taking pills in these two paragraphs. Once they do get access to these 

pills they can hide what they take and easily pass it off as their parents are just running low on pills 

again if their parents don’t pay attention to detail. Starting at a young age can lead to a long life of 

addiction and cause a lot of other problems in the future, which no one wants their kids to go 

through.  
 Perez​7
 

Parents should keep their kids away from stuff like this in order to keep their focus on 

getting through what is already going on. It is hard enough what these kids go through on a daily 

basis, especially teenagers who have to deal with high school, trying to get their emotions under 

control, maintaining relationships, and some of them are starting to get jobs. A lot of those 

students have to deal with bullies and exams and other things that come along the way in school or 

at home. Drugs can just add on to what they have going on already. It would not be the ideal path 

to take if kids add onto the pressure of getting through these times. 

Even if students get to this point, there are many ways to deal with it instead of making 

matters worse. The article, ​Peer Pressure of Drinking, w

​ rites, “The perception that “everyone is doing 

it” is often false, as teenage drinking has actually been declining in recent years...binge drinking 

rates among teens between the ages of 12 and 20 have come down,”(13). This shows evidence that 

there are ways that exist to help students maintain their urges to continue to use alcohol and drugs 

or even prevent them from doing so in the first place. 

The article shows the readers some tips to use for dealing with peer pressure. “ Keep 

yourself busy with activities that are not conducive to alcohol consumption. Establish and maintain 

healthy relationships with other peers who don’t drink and won’t pressure you to do so. Be aware 

that people often “talk themselves up”. Be aware that social perceptions are often skewed. Think of 

things you can say ahead of time when offered alcohol so you won’t be caught off guard,”(15). These 

were some of the tips that were mentioned in the article to help students all around the world to 

help them.  
 Perez​8
 

Even if there are many reasons for teachers to get involved to stop students from pressuring 

others into doing these things, they still don’t feel like they should get involved and feel like that 

students are mature enough to make the right decisions. The thing is that they are not mature 

enough and it is a fifty-fifty chance that they will make the right decision. If they have a potential 

chance to stop this from happening then they should take a chance and stop it from spreading to 

other students.  

They could do something as little as inform their parents or guidance counselor. Every small 

action they do to prevent drugs and alcohol from getting in students hands can make a big 

difference in their students' lives. That would mean that more students get help and if that strategy 

works more students will get their priorities straight and back again to focus on what is going on 

without getting distracted. They might even do better in school and get more accomplished without 

having to feel the need to use drugs and alcohol to get through everything. 

Although peer pressure is mostly held in a bad light, there are other situations where peer 

pressure doesn’t have to be destructive. The article, ​Peer Pressure and Drug Addiction,​ mentions, 

“​Every group of friends is different and they have different rules on what is acceptable and what is 

not. Each group of friends normally set the rules with a view to protect members from harm,”(13). 

This shows the other side 0f the story on peer pressure and how it can be used in a different light 

other than bad.  

When thinking of the words peer pressure people think of all the bad things their peers 

might push onto someone because it happens way more often than beneficial things that they can 
 Perez​9
push towards. This article shines a light on the good examples of a change to let people know that 

peer pressure is not always bad. Supportive peer pressure can act as an equal to bad peer pressure 

which can either cancel the bad out or even over power it, same goes for the bad. ​Peer Pressure and 

Drug Addiction​ adds, “​ ​There are many websites available to people of all ages with information on 

how to resist peer pressure. The charity ChildLine advises young people to visit their website if they 

are feeling pressured into using drugs,”(12). This shows that there are also websites that will help 

students with the pressure and help them to resist this instead of giving in to their peers. Once the 

students get a hold of this information they can learn and control themselves and try and fight to 

stop the pressure their friends give them. The websites will help them with that and show ways to 

avoid even being put in that kind of a situation. Like mentioned before, students are most likely not 

mature enough to always make the right decisions so they need all the help they can get. 

With all of this help students should be fine with this, but it wouldn’t hurt for teachers to help 

and guide their students to the help available so it would be actually useful to them. Teachers and 

other faculty members should take more time and effort to stop the bad side of peer pressure and 

help students get the help they need to resist it themselves.  

 
 Perez​10
 

Works Cited 

Ekern, Baxter, et al. “High School Peer Pressure Leads to Drug Use.” ​Addiction Hope​, 9 June 2017, 

www.addictionhope.com/blog/high-school-peer-pressure-leads-to-drug-use-as-a-way-to-fi

t-in/. 

Ekern, Jacquelyn, et al. “Influence of Peer Pressure on Adolescents and Substance Abuse.” 

Addiction Hope​, 24 June 2019, 

www.addictionhope.com/blog/peer-pressure-teenagers-substance-abuse/. 

“How Much Influence Does Peer Pressure Play on Teen Drinking?” ​Alcohol.org​, 

www.alcohol.org/teens/peer-pressure-drinking/. 

“Peer Pressure and Drug Addiction.” ​Cassiobury Court,​ 12 Mar. 2020, 

cassioburycourt.com/2019/01/peer-pressure-and-drug-addiction/. 

“Why Does Peer Pressure Influence Teens To Try Drugs?” ​NIDA for Teens,​  

teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/why-does-peer-pressure-influence-teens-try-drugs. 

 
 Perez​11