Discussing the Peer Pressure We Weren’t Raised to Look Out For
As children growing into teens, there is a regular warning of ‘peer pressure’: don’t do something just because everyone else is. But entering adulthood, it becomes abundantly clear how - no matter how important - surface level these warnings are, and do little to prevent young people fr0m intaking the harmful views of those around them.
Growing up, the idea of peer pressure is commonplace in conversations with parents and guardians. Deterring us from ‘rebellious’ behaviour is often done in the same sentence as making sure we pick the right friends and surround ourselves with sensible people. There is, however, a risk of ignoring the hidden peer pressure of conforming to the opinions of those around us, much of which is harmful to others.
The want to be accepted is great in children, seeking not only a sense of belonging and familiarity, but validation from others that they deem important, assuming that the most common way is the ‘right way’. Where it may begin with wanting to style their hair similarly or make tweaks to how they wear their school uniform, it can soon make its way into their vocabulary and opinions of others. Moving on to secondary school and beyond, with introductions to more complex discussions and awareness of differences in society, the validation young people may feel from their peers for making controversial statements regarding race, gender, sexuality, etc is harmful to others above all else, and often treated as a matter of ‘growing up’.
Contributing to this also, is the fact that the appeal of internet fame often encourages individuals to abandon their moral compass to be replaced with the need for recognition, with controversy marketed as a tactic in growing a social platform. The age that people are exposed to mass amounts of opinion online gets younger year by year, and with that comes the pressure of figuring out what is right and wrong beyond your social circle in real life. With growing globalisation and platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, the ability to access information from anywhere in the world in such a simple format has children as young as 8 and 9 developing their views on the world with the help of overtly close-minded people sometimes four times their age. Not only are they then communicating this with others online as the norm, but it is also brought into their circle of friends and family, creating a network of impressionable individuals relaying divisive language to those around them. On one hand, this speaks to the need for socialisation in an environment that teaches children to be accepting, an area that seems to be lacking when looking into internet conversations, or perhaps it is the lack of regulation on the platforms that these young individuals are exposed to that is to blame.
But much of this begins at home. The morality of children is greatly influenced by their upbringing, and the idea of peer pressure should be brought back within a person’s family also. With social inequality still largely present in contemporary society, there is no excuse for allowing the socialisation of children to include ignorance of divisive individuals. These playground whispers between young people play into a much larger issue which allows Black women to be left behind in the progress of gender pay equality to this day, and as many as 15,000 yearly hate crimes to be made against people because of their sexual orientation as recently as 2019.
Much of what influences growing individuals begins at home, and the first people that shape the way someone views the world around them are their parents and teachers. The comfortability of remaining oblivious to how these things manifest as people get older is a plain ignorance to the harm caused.
