Peer Pressure

Peer pressure- a word, an action, which has a very crucial effect on a person’s life, particularly that of a teenager. In today’s world peer pressure rules the life of the modern youth! This can be described as a situation where a person is so greatly influenced by his or her social circle that he or she is forced to do things which they really don’t want to do. Peer pressure, where harmful, can be healthy too but in most of the scenarios it affects the person badly.
As a child enters his teenage, he is full of enthusiasm and has a high spirit. He thinks that he is mature enough to take the challenges of the dangerous world and he feels that he has the brains to tackle any problem that comes ahead of him. Discovering the world is one of the first thing that a teenager wants and a company to hangout with- peers who would understand his needs, his attitude and his likes and dislikes, comes as the second basic priority. He joins the group which he thinks he is compatible with and tries to blend in with their lifestyle. This is the point where peer pressure starts to play its role. The ones already in the group pressurize the new-comer to do whatever they does without caring for anything. Here the moral values given to a child by his parents are degraded by him. Most of the time, the peers provoke new friends to smoke with them saying that it is the trend and that they should move on with the world. These people regard their parents with disrespect saying that the later are conservative and “un cool”, that they do not want their child to progress with the world and only trapping him inside a cocoon is what they really want.
The world has been devastated by an ever-increasing crime rate and peer pressure is to be blamed for it to a great extent! The youth is encouraged by their peers to lie, cheat, steal, take advantage of their supposedly limitless freedom and enjoy their lives to its fullest at the cost of others. Under the pressure of being accepted by their social circle, teenagers involve themselves in every sort of wrong act which their peers demand. They lie to their parents fearlessly; steal with pride and cheat, thinking that it is the most fun thing they can do to have a great reputation among their friends. What they don’t understand is that it will only lead them to a worse life where turning back would be impossible.
The youth think of their parents as their enemies, who are constantly trying to limit their freedom and apparently cannot see them enjoying their lives. This generation gap is further widened when the teenagers are being provoked by their peers to misbehave with their parents and are constantly being brain washed that whatever their parents say is wrong and never for their benefit. This pressure causes many teenagers to leave their parents at an early age and they later suffer with a lack of parental guidance when it is most wanted and the love and attention that they desire at the time when the same peers who once pressurized them leave them all alone.
Hence, peer pressure has been the cause of failure, depression, crime and suicide at an early age in the youth. It won’t be wrong to term it as a menace, when it destroys the youth and in turn takes the whole society down with it. Teenage is a very delicate age, what goes around in a person’s life at this phase of life can either give him a marvelous future, but if trapped in a wrong company it can be the most unbearable to live, lonely journey leading to a sad ending.

By. Farwa Abbas

Is it possible to give media absolute freedom?

Nowadays media has been given freedom throughout the world. The countries which do not give media the freedom are widely criticized from every corner of the planet we live in. But is it possible to give absolute freedom to the media? That is the question which every intellectual and law maker is asking these days.
The word media is a vast word; it covers both the print and electronic media. The print media in question consists of all types of newspaper, magazines and every other printed material in the form of books and journals. The electronic media covers the entire news channel, entertainment channels and every other channel, on the television and the radio (and last but not the least internet).
If we ask general public, whether it is possible to let media have absolute freedom the majority will say YES, but unfortunately the answer in NO.
Let’s say the media is given absolute freedom, and taking advantage of that, the concerned television channels put on air a program which is not suitable to minors, yet the children are one of the viewers of that TV channel. The effect will be disastrous. But you cannot blame the media they had “absolute freedom” to put anything on air.
It is a fact that a child has the tendency of copying what he sees around him. When Saddam Hussain ; the former Iraqi dictator was hanged, his execution was televised all around the world on news channels, and the after effects were horrific. A 10-year-old-boy from Webster, Texas killed himself while imitating the execution, so did a 9 year old from Pakistan. Similar reports came from Yemen were at least two boys were killed and another was injured. Same fate awaited for a 15 year old from Kolkata, India, and a 12 year old from Saudia Arabia (ABC news, Chinadaily.com).
Similarly absolute freedom to media at times, is also disastrous for a nation as a whole.
Lets say for example; a country is in a state of war, and it loses some of the soldiers, the press and the media of that country get some footages of the scene and the coffins and the publish them. This creates disappointment among the nation as well as those who are fighting the war.
We are living in a dangerous world where acts of terrorism, unfortunately have become very much common. When such blasts take place we get to know about them through televisions and newspapers. We see bodies everywhere, hands detached, legs apart, and shattered glasses with blood everywhere. This thing creates psychological disorder among the viewers who are watching it. People become aggressive and frustrated by all those scenes. Whose is to be blamed? The media? But wait they had absolute freedom.
Keeping in mind that not all of the viewers are brave and strong persons, laws should be amended in order to safeguard the minds of the children and the weak people of our society. Furthermore media and the press should morally get their laws scrutinized every now and then by our lawmakers. In the end it is possible to give media a limited freedom but not absolute freedom.

Peer Pressure

Peer Pressure

It all started when I didn’t get A’s in my A-levels. Oh well maybe I can try again, I told my teacher, and then I was waiting for him to give me a pat on my shoulder and encourage me; but all I got was another “word bomb”, ‘you cannot do it, A-levels is not for students like you’.

I am not the only one who receives such scolding, or so called “deserving lecture”.

These types of scenes are common in every house hold. Characters change, but one of them sticks on like a glue and goes to be on the receiving end every time. He is like the hero of a Bollywood romance, always the one who is victimized; this creature is called the student.

Teenage is that delicate age, in which a child’s personality and his mind start to develop and he attains a sense of maturity. It is the age when the youngsters finally start discovering the luxuries of life and they feel grown up, mature enough to take their own decisions. But all these assumptions crash, when a teenager takes a step which he thinks is best for him but his parents oppose it.

Growing up in Pakistan, I have noticed one thing for sure, that whatever decision you want to take (regarding your career specially), your parents think that you are taking the easy way out. So in the end a student gets so stressed out and pressurized that he succumbs to his parent’s decision and then his personality and self belief is totally destroyed.

We can call it a trend or mentality of the Asian (to be precise the parents of Sub-Continent), that they want their children even if they have reached the age of 19 or 20, to listen only to them regarding their core decisions. When parents enforce their decisions on their children, a sort of rebellion takes place in the mind of children and they become frustrated and eventually fail in every aspect of life.

Peer pressure is a word with a vast meaning. Another form of it comes with in our social groups; you have to look cool if you want to enter a specific friends circle in your school or college. You should wear branded clothes, shoes, should have an expensive cell phone and the most common of all must have a Girl Friend or a Boy Friend.

This pressure gives birth to social norms; like smoking, stealing our parent’s money and to stay out of our home late, risking our lives just to prove that we are cool. Under the pressure of being accepted by their social circle, teenagers involve themselves in every sort of wrong act which their peers demand. They lie to their parents fearlessly; steal with pride and cheat, thinking that it is the most fun thing they can do to have a great reputation among their friends. What they don’t understand is that it will only lead them to a worse life where turning back would be impossible.

We live in a biased world. Everywhere around us we see lawlessness, corruption and favoritism. Favoritism is yet another branch of peer pressure. In particularly schools and colleges, there are teachers who favor a student because he is a teacher’s pet. He gets good grades even if he performs ordinarily. Then again there is a bright student who is very good in studies but is not teacher’s pet. He tries way hard but is not rewarded because his teacher his peer wants him to act like a teacher’s pet.

All these factors lead a student in a very difficult situation, he is mentally tortured, pressurized, demoralized, compared and eventually he just becomes a machine who will accept what other wants. Incidentally this cycle goes on to haunt him and he then pressurizes his children, and thus the ‘student’ is again victimized.

By: Yasir Ahmed Qureshi