The Young and Society

In this topic we are going to discuss social group that is created by teenagers and young adults. But firstly, we think it’s important to establish who is part of this group. Teenagers are people who are at the age of 13 to 19, they are no longer children, but they are not fully developed yet either. People from this group usually this attend Elementary school and later attend Middle school, or they can be preparing for their future professions some other way than school. In group of young adults are people, who are from the age of 20 to 30. People from this social group usually start to study at college or start to work. They can even start their own family, get married or move to their own home away from their parents.

Teenagers go through many physical changes in this age, which are caused by hormonal changes happening in their body. Boys start to have more muscle mass, facial hair or deeper voices. On other hand girls start get wider hips and they are getting biologically ready to conceive a child. For teenagers’ physical appearance is becoming more and more important, because they don’t want to look like children, but want to look like adult or even be similar to their role model. They are really open minded, so they like to experiment with fashion trends and are often the first social group which starts to experiment with new excentric fashion styles. Often, they experiment with new hairstyles, clothes, tattoos or piercing. Girls start to use make-up, but we think it is important to mention that even younger girls than 13 years old start using make-up. They like to wear provocative clothes, dye their hair or wear many kinds of jewellery or accessories. Also, teenagers are social group that are most influenced by social medias, so when some new trend comes, they are the first one to respond and start to adopt it. These trends aren’t in some cases good for teenagers because they could became so obsessed with these trends that they start to experiment with special diets that could potentially lead to anorexia or bulimia.

Another point is that teenagers usually don’t have the same responsibilities as adults. They don’t have to work, pay bills, earn for living, care about accommodation, they can usually spend their free time doing what they want. But sometimes they use their free time just doing task that they have for school or some other type of chores. But when they truly have free time, they can spend it by doing their hobbies, like some kind sport, going to cinema, reading book, socializing by meeting new people, going to parties or bars. Also, they can participate in some kind of youth centre or clubs that are active in ecological movement, humans’ rights or some other kind of radical movements. Young people are also in many times part of some radical organizations, that spread hatred and extreme opinions.

Young people are trying to find their place in society. They want to be respected and seen equals to the adults and other older people. Some of the basic human basic rights are the right to education and protection from unfair treatment, these also apply to young people. From this right also arise some duties and responsibilities towards other people. Their duties include attending school, in our school we have mandatory 10 years of studying in school, studying, doing their assignments, helping parents in doing chores and also taking care of their younger siblings. The better they learn to take their duties and responsibilities seriously the better they are prepared for their transition to adulthood. When young people turn 18, they have some more rights and new responsibilities. Some of them include the right to vote the right to get married, to buy alcoholic drinks, but they are also responsible for their actions and decisions.

People form these groups are involved in two really different types of relationships, first is with their parents, teachers and older people. The second type is with other young people, like their siblings, friend and other peers. The second type of relationships is really important in this part of their life, because their peers start to have significant influence on their everyday life. They are trying to find social groups that have the same hobbies, problems or expectations. With this comes new friendships and new experiences that comes with them. The influence of peers isn’t always positive but can be in many cases negative and could also harm the influenced person. Some of the negative phenomena that can occur is bullying, violence, vandalism, alcohol or drug addictions, irresponsible sexual behaviour. On the other hand, relationships with older generation are often marked by generation gap, which is caused by different expectations in life, hobbies, fashion, opinions. This could also lead to many arguments that in many cases start when younger people don’t agree with established routines and ideas of life that are created by older people. On the other hand, younger people don’t like being told what to do, what to think and how to behave.

In these articles we going to mainly talk about some negative effects that can be caused by influence of peers on young people. Mainly teenagers want to try new things and most of the time they are encouraged by their peers to try alcohol, smoking and even in some cases trying some illegal substances in form of drugs. This pressure to start drinking or smoking is in our opinion highly influenced by expectations of “normal” behaviour by young people that have been set. Drinking, smoking and taking drugs starts that they just want to experiment, they take them occasionally and for recreational purposes, but in some cases, it can lead to harmful addictions. This could have very negative effect on their physical or mental health, social life, personal relationships or even future carer.

Drugs can have similar effects as alcohol, but they are much more addictive. To these kinds of drugs belong heroin, pervitin and many more. People with addiction to drugs is some cases don’t admit their addiction until it is too late, and they need medical and psychological help. Recovering from any kind of addiction is very long and stressful process. But people who managed to cure from addiction can still live happy life.

In conclusion we think it is important to say that young people are full of expectations and dreams. Their dreams are about their future career and trying to avoid mistakes that their parents did. They also want to create better world, because they grew up in a world full of environmental, political problems. Furthermore, they are aware of all the progress that is happening in all kinds of aspects of our own life. But on the other hand, they tend to be more influenced by social medias and peers then other generations. The influence can be in many ways very good but also extremely bad. Some members of this social group can be overly positive or on the other side of spectrum overly negative. This perspective can also influence their way of living. But on other hand the way young generation is going to bee always our future, even when we group up there is going to be another younger generation that is going to need our help, so we should give at least our understanding and our help them to make better decisions.