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Peer pressure means being influenced or pushed over by friends to do something you do or do not wish to do. Adolescence is an age when teenagers are still trying to make an identity for themselves. They have a desperate need to belong. Thus, they become a soft target for peer pressure where bad advice, curiosity to try something everyone else is doing or just the fear of being teased by friends lead the teens to do things, they would rather not do left to their better judgement. This is also the crucial time for making many decisions as they are exposed to several different cultures and value systems at once. Teens’ behavior and perception of life depends much on the peer pressure.
They may have to struggle with their own friends to steer away from drugs, violence, sex and overspending money among other things. Formal dating has been replaced informal socializing patterns with casual sex relations in mixed-sex groups that have increased the risk of exposure to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. While peer pressure is not always negative and may reinforce family value systems, an adolescent is exposed to several groups of peers at once - at college, in the neighborhood, at playgrounds, political associations and romantic ties. The levels of these groups may differ from one person as a friend to crowds. All of these groups may have unique traits, norms, cultures and value systems and slowly teenager drifts towards groups that hang together more and thus, peer relationships emerge.
At adolescence, peer relations become the core of teens’ lives and activities and young people like to socialize and have fun with their peers rather than their families. Adolescents become more and physically and psychologically distant from their parents and these distances diminish emotional closeness and warmth between them and there are frequent conflicts and disagreements between them. Kids seem to prefer their peers for close relations. In smaller cities, suburbs and rural areas, it is being seen that youth gangs are becoming a recognizable peer group, especially among economically disadvantaged families and families where parents are distant or unavailable for their children.