A person’s identity can be dictated by the people they decide to surround themselves with. The impact of friends could be positively or negatively depending on the people someone surrounds themselves with. It could just be the clothing you wear or the mannerisms someone has. It could also be something like the political views someone has. There is also a careful balance between the number of friends someone should have.
Clothing/Mannerisms
The aspect of someone most influenced by friends can be the kinds of clothes a person wears. If someone happens to get into the style of wearing flannel shirts everywhere they go, their friend might be interested in starting to wear flannel shirts. Being around people also can change the general mannerisms. It could be the references someone would make to different shows or movies that they generally consume, or some certain sayings, even down to hand gestures. The people and influences around a person can change them down to almost every minute decision.
Amount of People Surrounding You
While a person should always be able to surround themselves with people so they can socialize and grow as a person, there is an argument to be made with having too many friends. If a person’s group of friends becomes too large, they could start to lose that sense of connection between one another, wearing themselves too thin. The argument could also be made that someone needs people around them that aren’t their close friends so they can still have people to talk to when their friends aren’t around.
Shift in Source of Influence Over the Years
It had been seen as a general consensus that most people inherit their beliefs from their family . The unit of someone’s parents and siblings were the roots of their beliefs, opinions, wants, and hates. Heading into the 21st century though, especially the new generation has turned away from the opinions of their parents to the influence of whatever social media has to offer. The things a person sees on whatever ads are presented to them dictate their opinions, especially on the topic of politics. There are cases everyday of a family split apart by political views, the children split away from the families. The sharing of opinions and views on most topics are almost passed around echochamber, restricting the creation of new ideas.
Dealing With Toxic Friends
While spending time with people is generally good for a person’s growth, especially in high school where a large amount of a person’s emotional growth occurs, some friends can drag a person down, forcing them to do things that would ultimately be detrimental to themselves and ruin their future. Dealing with someone deemed a toxic friend can be a very touchy subject. On one hand, the toxic friend is obviously causing trouble in the relationship. On the other hand, this person could have connections to the rest of the friend group, causing doubt in someone to cut them out. The recommended course of action for this situation would be to bring it up with the group, addressing what the problem is with the toxic friend and trying to cut them off. If the entire friend group is found to agree with the toxic friends point of view, then it might be the best option to cut off from the group entirely. It is always easier to find new friends than to deal with terrible ones.
Overall, a person could influence others to push themselves further in life or cause a person to be detrimental to themselves in the future. People have to be aware of how many people they surround themselves with and the quality of people they surround themselves with.
