Peer pressure is a term that is not often used in everyday conversations but it's something that is always present in society. The first time I heard about it was back in primary school in a subject called social studies. It is usually portrayed as something very bad but what if there's a good side to it? When we hear peer pressure, we think of teenagers being pressured into risky behaviours but from experience, there are also some benefits attached to it, depending on the form of pressure.
I usually pride myself as someone who doesn't easily give in to peer pressure and I mostly prefer making my own decisions without external inputs but once in a while, I do find myself following someone else idea and sometimes it pays off but some other times it totally backfired and I regretted it. The beauty of both instances is that there is always something to learn from them; whether you benefitted from such decisions or you regretted it. And so, I will begin by looking at the peer-pressured decision that backfired.
The downside
As I said earlier, I hardly make decisions based on the input of others but there are certain exceptions and a notable one happened during the COVID-19 lockdown. Some of you might remember that all sorts of ponzi schemes and internet scams were prevalent during this period and I happened to find myself in a WhatsApp group where we discussed different ways of making money online which included ponzi schemes. Despite everyone talking about how much they have earned from these schemes and encouraging me to join them, I never invested in them until one day.
I finally gave in to the pressure and invested some money which I got back doubled within 24 hours. It was exciting that I could get a 100% ROI within a day, so I kept investing until I had 10 times the amount I started with and just like every other ponzi scheme, it collapsed after a while. A new one came out after that one and again my friends and the other group members encouraged me to join. It kept going that way but later on, I no longer made any profits but instead, I started losing. A ponzi scheme launched today, I invest and it collapses the next day without me earning anything from it.
I kept listening to people telling me that I should just keep investing in new ones as soon as they launch because that's the best way to make a profit before they collapse and in the end, I lost all the money I had, both the profits I made from previous schemes and the savings I had earlier. That was the day I vowed to never take part in any ponzi scheme again, and I have kept to that vow after several years, despite temptations from my friends and even siblings to invest in new ponzi schemes.
The good side
This is probably the best benefit of peer pressure that has happened to me all my life and it was during my university days. When I first got admitted to the university, I barely attended lectures and preferred to roam around campus with my friends. This resulted in me having a very bad result in my first year and I even got an F in one of the courses. By the second year, I made some new friends and that was probably the best decision I ever made. I was still very lazy academically but the friends I made were like machines when it came to their studies; they never got tired.
I hung out with them most of the time and 2 of them even lived in the same hostel as me. Because I was around them most of the time, it became weird that they were always studying and I wasn't. Sometimes they will be discussing a topic but I wouldn't be able to chip in because I didn't know anything about it. This made me start taking my studies seriously so I could fit in properly into the group before people will start referring to us as "those 4 intelligent people and their friend." My grades improved tremendously and until I graduated, I never got a bad grade.
In the end, the 5 of us graduated with a second-class upper-division, and I know I would have ended up with something way worse if I hadn't made friends with them in the first place. We always studied late into the night, especially during exam periods and we always dominated the result board after every semester. This is certainly a good form of peer pressure because I was friends with highly intelligent individuals and because I wanted to feel like I was part of the group, I put more effort into my studies and in the end, it yielded better results.
Summing it up
As you can see, peer pressure can be either a good thing or bad and it mostly depends on the type of friends you have. The bad side can be seen in the form of risky behaviours (drug abuse, internet fraud, reckless driving, etc). I believe this is the most common type of peer pressure and it's the reason why people only think of the negative side of it. There's a high rise in Internet fraud in my country and it can be attributed to peer pressure; youths been pressured into making money and living up to the standards of their peers (who are also into fraud).
Then as for the benefits, we see it in the form of positive reinforcement, social bonds and exposure to diversity. In summary, it can help you become a better version of yourself, just like what my friends did for me at the university. As we grow older, we tend to effectively manage peer pressure by developing self-awareness and building resilience to it, which mostly comes from the years of experience we have developed over the years. It's why no form of peer pressure can make me take part in any ponzi scheme today because I have already experienced it and I learned my lessons from that experience.
This is my entry for April Inleo Prompt, day 11. Click the link to also participate.
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