The role played by friendship in teenagers has two contrasting perspectives. These are the social bonding perspective and the social interaction perspective. Though there are several benefits of friendship, there are many potential negatives to having friendships that are not entirely genuine. The risk of having ‘false’ or ‘bad’ friends is the first and perhaps most apparent negative impact of friendship. Belittling your successes, ignoring you, and unhealthy competition between you and your friend are all signs of a potential bad friend. The promise-breaker, the double-crosser, the self-absorbed, the discloser, the competitor, and the fault finder are the six categories of ‘bad friends.’ Having any of these types of friends in your life can have a significant negative impact.
Key Facts:
- Negative friends Affect Teenagers by damaging their physical health and well-being
- Negative friends Affect Teenagers by placing them at risk for diseases such as depression, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer
- Unhealthy lifestyle habits can spread rapidly among close friends.
How Do Negative Friends Affect Teenagers?
Here Are the Consequences of Having Negative Influence Friends:
1. You, Will, Forget About Your Time, Which Is Important
When meeting or playing with peers, it is easy to lose track of time because peers’ activities are enjoyable. This affects other activities. For example, someone may forget to worship or perform his trash because it is too cool to play with his friends.
This is a fact that happens if you have a friend that has a negative impact and does not remind you of the value of your time. Friends with a positive influence will invite you to good things. And they will still remind you that you still have more valuable time than gathering. Gathering can be beneficial if you know when to do it.
2. You, Will, Get To Be Using Of Abusive Language
When talking or expressing anger in groups, abusive language will appear. If the group does not remind each other, abusive language may become a normal thing to say.
Friends with bad impacts may have a negative impact on your language, as well. Your ears will hear abusive language from the mouth that speaks. And you will undoubtedly become used to or follow bad language that has been influenced by friends who bring bad influence.
3. You Will Be Trapped In Drug Abuse
As we all know, teenagers are the most frequent narcotics users. And peer friends play a role in the spread of narcotics. It is easier for someone to misuse drugs when they have peer friends to convince them.
Drugs are often abused for personal gain in the belief that it makes one look cooler. A friend with a negative influence would almost surely convince you to use drugs. Because he doesn’t care about your future and wants to push you in the wrong direction.
4. Lack of Interest in Learning, And Tend To Be Lazy And Like Things that violate social norms
The future is decided by the habits a person has formed. If he is lazy in studying, his future will not be as good as those who study hard. The community itself decides the future of the state. If people with lazy motivation influence the community, they cannot be controlled by the native community. Laziness to learn can come from friends that have a negative impact.
And a bad influence friend will indirectly control our brain so that we do not follow the norms. These include riding a motorcycle at high speeds without wearing a helmet.
5. You feel lonely and isolated
Spending time with friends can make you feel more connected. Instead, a toxic relationship can leave you feeling neglected. You reach out to make plans. But you are excluded from group events. And your messages go unanswered (unless, of course, they need something from you).
They don’t seem to want to spend time with you. And the friendship doesn’t seem to satisfy you or feel like one at all.
6. Your stress increases
One major advantage of close friendships is that it reduces stress. Seeing friends will not always make you feel better. But you will most likely find some improvement.
A toxic mate, far from relieving stress, can worsen it. When you spend time together, they will say or do things that frustrate you.
Even when you’re not around them, you can spend a lot of time thinking about your negative experiences. This may make you feel tense, irritable, or even downright awful.
7. You don’t feel supported
When you need someone, true friends are there for you. True, this support isn’t always obvious. At the very least, friendship involves listening with empathy and offering validation of one’s suffering and pain.
You never feel any support or sympathy in a toxic relationship. You feel minimized when they ignore your concerns or ignored completely if they never respond to your messages or requests for help.
In short, they aren’t there when you need a friend the most.
8. Your self-confidence and self-esteem take a hit
When someone consistently puts you down and treats you badly, you may begin to realize it and stop expecting anything better.
As you begin to believe their criticisms and doubt your abilities and strengths, your self-esteem will begin to diminish.
9. You blame yourself for their behavior
Another result of manipulation? You start to believe you’ve made a mistake.
You may believe you deserve it when they lash out at you. You may decide they never provide help because you ask for it so often. So you make amends by jumping in whenever they require help.
You may also be grateful that they spend any time with you at all. After all, they’ve pointed out so many of your faults.
10. You often feel off-balance
People who act in toxic ways often use manipulation to achieve their goals. Manipulation always gives the feeling that something isn’t quite right, even though you can’t say exactly what it is.
You may feel that you never know what to say or do. They may take subtle jabs at you or openly mock you, leaving you wondering if they mean what they say.
Their reactions (or overreactions) can put you off balance even more. They sometimes laugh it off, and other times they shout. Not knowing which will occur will leave you so confused that you are sure how to proceed — except with extreme caution.
This unease can permeate other aspects of your life, leaving you jumpy and easily upset.
11. Your other relationships suffer
Negative friends affect teenagers gradually but slowly contaminate other close relationships.
When you start to doubt yourself, you can begin to see yourself as a bad friend. Even if you do not begin to doubt yourself, you may find it difficult to trust others. You can begin to avoid people because you are worried that everyone sees you as flawed, boring, or unsupportive.
This can keep you from seeking help from people who truly care about you, leaving you further isolating and alone.
The bottom line
Ending a toxic friendship can be difficult. And it’s perfectly normal to need some extra support at any stage of the process. A therapist can help you explore your thoughts about friendship.
