Peer Pressure And Social Media - Free Essay Example

Peer pressure in modern society is intensified by social media, countless individuals are addicted to it, and are slaves to comparing themselves to others. It is an omnipresent influence in daily life, and many cant go a single hour without scrolling through feeds. Individuals allow social media to shape their decisions, making individuals a slave to society just like the Allegory of the Cave about human, by Plato. The Allegory of the Cave is about human perception, the slaves didnt know they were in slavery. Peer pressure is not as overt as it used to be, it can be in the form of likes and comments on the internet, it uses this tactic to keep individuals enslaved. It specifically targets youths who are easily pressured into illusion, over truth. Teenagers are the most disenfranchised by social media because they are young and looking for answers about life choices like, what to wear, what to do, and who to look up to. Bullies prey on teenage insecurities during that developmental inquiry, and use the internet as a tool to peer pressure them into conforming to the group. Social media has intensified all aspects of peer pressure, and has drastically changed the lives of adolescents. As we all know from personal experience, teenagers do not always make the right decisions. For example, many would choose eating pizza every night as opposed to salad. They know that salad is better for them, but they choose to eat the pizza anyways. However, many teenagers will know that something is detrimental to their health and choose to do it nonetheless because everyone is doing it. Many have heard of the recent, tide pod challenge where teens and young adults bite into the liquid laundry detergent and watch the soap erupt from their mouths. Obviously this is an extremely hazardous and idiotic thing to do, but it was trending. It was gaining likes and comments, and the pressure to be popular outweighed the potential risks. The same applies for drinking, and taking drugs. Underage drinking and partying is idolized over the internet, the more intoxicated you are, the more attention you recieve. Many post pictures of their drinks, and videos of themselves and friends completely w asted because it attracts attention on social media. It isnt enough to have one or two drinks, many are pressured into binge drinking because of the reaction it receives, More than 90% of the alcohol consumed by underage drinkers occurs during binge drinking episodes. (Gonzales). Again, the pressure to be popular and fit in, outweighed the potential risks. They know that binge drinking can cause, nausea, stupidity, rapid heart rate, and even blacking out. Yet by throwing up and blacking out, they will only attract more recognition from peers. Teenagers make bad decisions and unconsciously pressure others into participating when they receive positive attention, for a negative activity. Teenagers need to know that itrs only an illusion that everyone is doing it, so that they can try to avoid peer pressure. Teenagers are pressured into sexual activity over social media, and are targets for sexual harassment by adults 18+. When the app Snapchat was created, it didnt take long before teenagers learned they could send sultry or inappropriate photos over the internet. They were soon pressured by their crushes to send pictures of their privates because they disappear afterwards. So what could be the harm? This for many young adults, was the first sexual activity they were introduced to. Again, teenagers do not make good decisions and popularized sending nudes in attempt to make it a normal part of flirting with someone over the internet. It doesnt stop there, many will send complete strangers photos of their intimates and many of those strangers are over 18. Perverts and child molesters alike use social media to prey on childrenrs stupidity over the internet. They often use catfishing which is where a person uses someone elsers identity over the internet and talks to an unknowing person. Som etimes they dont bother to make another identity, they will lie about age, or simply convince the teen that they are trustworthy. The most scary of all, is when the adolescents have no idea their images are being saved, and even passed around, In 2016, an Australian website made world news when explicit photos of local school girls were being traded amongst users. Other sources and fan pages even started offering money to users who could find more photos of their favorites. Unbelievably, the worst part isnt even the fact that these girls are now being targeted, and their photos are being sold and traded by perverts, but rather that their images have been used without consent, and itrs very well possible that these girls are completely oblivious. (Lamm). Point being, perverts and child molesters are preying on these photos, that teenagers themselves have deemed acceptable to send on the internet. They arent able to differentiate between friend or foe, and they dont know they are being taken advantage of. Social media normalized sending naked pictures to friends and crushes, then because of that normalization, made teenagers relaxed about sending them to complete strangers. Teenagers could only see the illusion that social media created, when the truth was that they were being targeted and used. Teenagers were insecure about their body image even before the internet was created. Today, social media determines the standards of beauty, and if you dont fit within that standard you are often subject to bullying and harassment. Social media magnified the importance of looking flawless and created more pressure to fit in with the trends. With all the pressure to look flawless online, what someone looks like on the internet is not always what they look like in real life, While the influence of digitally altered images is one of many factors involved in mainstream media, most people can now curate their own images to their liking with a swipe of their fingertip, thanks in part to an array of free applications for smartphones. People now have the ability to add filters, brighten their eyes, craft how they want their body to appear, whiten teeth, and more. (Cole). Models, and celebrities alike edit and reconstruct their photos to make themselves look like the standard of beauty because the truth is that they dont fit into it either. The beauty standards are completely unachievable because they arent real. That celebrity has such a skinny waist because she edited it, but the girl who looks up to her and is starving herself to look like her, doesnt know that. Teenagers and adults go to disturbing lengths to achieve beauty standards, plastic surgery, waist training, starving themselves, and more. Social media creates unrealistic standards and illusions of beauty and then shames girls for not looking like that image. In recent years, social media has started to take steps towards revolutionizing those unachievable standards and teaching all people of different shapes, colors, and sizes to love themselves, but there is still far to go. In conclusion, social media is neither good nor bad, but is a platform that many have used for evil. Itrs bad when people believe that everything on the internet is true, and blindly follow its orders. Teenagers are not the only demographic that is affected by its false representation. My mom taught me not to eat tide pods, but she didnt teach me that beauty standards on the internet were outrageous because she didnt know. Parents dont know that their teens are being pressured online, because they dont even know that they themselves are being pressured online. Teenagers are the most disenfranchised by social media only because they are young and more gullible than adults. It didnt change our lives because we grew up with it, but definitions of peer pressure and bullying were immensely changed by it. My age group was born when social media was born, we dont know a life without it. Our parents didnt know the effects of it, we had to navigate it on our own, and we were the lab rats.

Veteran Affairs and PTSD Research Paper - 1375 Words

Veteran Affairs and PTSD (Research Paper Sample) Content: Veteran Affairs and PTSDName:Institution: Veteran Affairs and PTSDIntroduction Posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, refers to an anxiety disorder that can develop after an individuals exposure to traumatic events such as the threat of death, accidents, serious injury, or assault. The diagnosis of PTSD may result when a set of symptoms such as high levels of anxiety (hyperarousal), disturbing recurrence of flashbacks, and the numbing or avoidance of memories of the traumatizing event persist for extended periods, usually more than a month following the traumatic event. Because of combat conditions, war veterans are predisposed to PTSD (Kulkarni, Porter Rauch, 2012, p. 273). A growing number of war veterans have been seeking treatment for PTSD at the Department of Veteran Affairs. PTSD is categorized as an anxiety disorder, and the attributes are not present before experience of the violently traumatic event. Characteristically, the individual with PTSD will avoid all thoughts, discussions, and emotions of the stress-causing event and may experience memory loss or amnesia. Nonetheless, the individual commonly relives the event through disturbing, recurrent flashbacks, recollections and nightmares.Pathophysiology of PTSDNeuroendocrinology PTSD symptoms may come about following the experience of a traumatic incident that leads to an abnormal adrenaline response, causing profound neurological patterns in an individuals brain that can endure long after the causal event, which causes the individual to be hyper-responsive to future terrifying or anxiety-causing situations. During the traumatic experience, increased levels of stress hormones are often secreted, which smother hypothalamic activity and may be the major factor that contributes towards PTSD development. PTSD causes certain biochemical changes in the body and brain that is different from other disorders (Beck Sloan, 2012, p. 169). Individuals with PTSD have unceasingly low serotonin lev els, which may lead to behavioral symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, aggression, ruminations, impulsivity, and suicidal tendencies. The levels of dopamine in PTSD patients can contribute to the symptoms that are characteristic of the condition. Low dopamine levels can lead to apathy, anhedonia, motor deficits, and impaired attention while increased levels may cause agitation, psychosis, and restlessness. PTSD Among Military Veterans The scars of warfare often take a number of forms, from the loss of limbs to illnesses due to battlefield exposure and the psychological toll of experiencing extreme traumatic events. PTSD among military veterans endures to be an important concern with projected prevalence rates of fifteen percent among Vietnam-era war veterans, between two and ten percent among the first Gulf War veterans, and between eleven and twenty-two percent among active duty troops and veterans of the incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq. These rates, together with the docu mented, multidimensional injury and mutilation associated with PTSD create a pressing need for the better understanding and treatment of this disorder in this population (Kulkarni, Porter Rauch, 2012, p. 276). Two emotion-related indicators of PTSD, which are anger and dissociation, are well-known risk factors associated with the development and progress of PTSD. They are also significant problems among war veterans with PTSD.Anger among PTSD War Veterans Anger is often associated with a number of negative consequences such as impulsive aggression, inadequate treatment outcomes, increased aggression, as well as substance misuse. The trauma survivors who report increased heights of anger among both civilian and veteran populations are more likely to meet PTSD criteria. In addition, the level of anger among war veterans often differentiates those with and without PTSD. An increased level of anger is frequently associated with severe overall PTSD, even following the removal of stresso r events. According to Orth and Wieland (2006), the intensity of the relationship between anger and PTSD is significant across trauma types, even though it is most pronounced among military war veterans. Dissociation among PTSD War Veterans Dissociation is defined as the difficulty in integrating feelings, thoughts, and experiences into coherent memory and consciousness. Increased symptoms of dissociation, both in the course of and after exposure to the traumatic event, are associated with higher prevalence and increased asperity of PTSD among civilian and military population. Increased dissociation levels, both during and after traumatic events, have been found to be more marked among war veterans with PTSD than those without. This has been predictive of PTSD condition even after the management of the level of combat exposure (Kulkarni, Porter Rauch, 2012, p. 272). However, the connections between dissociation and symptoms of PTSD, which are numbing/avoidance, intrusion, and hyper arousal, are still obscured. For example, studies conducted on female war veterans who served in the Vietnam war indicate dissociation as predictive of intrusive and avoidance symptoms. Conversely, an increased dissociation level has only been related to symptoms of arousal in a section of male Australian Vietnam War veterans. Anger and Dissociation In combination, anger and dissociation are key factors in the development, as well as the maintenance of PTSD. Additionally, increased levels of anger and dissociation have often been associated with inferior mental health outcomes (that is, social impairment and PRSD). Dissociation and anger are complimentary manners of emotional detachment from the traumatic experience that involve problematic coping mechanism consistent with emotional avoidance (Kulkarni, Porter Rauch, 2012, p. 272). Even though these results are undeniable and compelling, replication and extension are necessary in the understanding of the relationship between dissociation, anger, and PTSD among war veterans.Trauma, Criminal Involvement, and Negative Affect in Afghanistan and Iraq War Veterans War veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq who struggle with emotional outbursts and anger resulting from combat trauma are more likely to be apprehended for criminal misdemeanor compared to other veterans (Elbogen et al, 2012, p. 1100). Even though criminal conduct among veterans has been viewed as a growing problem, less is known regarding why some veterans are more prone to arrests than others are. Criminal behavior theories suggest that individuals who have had exposure to traumatic events and stressful environments and who report negative emotions such as irritability and anger, show elevated risks of antisocial conduct. As more psychologically-scarred soldiers returned from active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, societys concern for and focus on these soldiers, as well as their psychological disorders increased. With studies substantiating the validity of PTSD diagnosis and the real impact of the condition on the conduct of war veterans, greater emphasis may be accorded to the hypothesis that PTSD is a disorder that gives a basis for a mental status defense, which include insanity, self-defense, and lack of mens rea.Management of PTSDPsychological Numerous variations of psychotherapy have been suggested for trauma-related complications such as PTSD. Simple counseling practices in treating PTSD include basic education about the condition, as well as providing safety and support (Benedek Wynn, 2011, p. 36). Some psychotherapy programs th...