<< It is thought that young adults are more importantly influenced by friends rather than by family.  Although parents have some influence over young adults in a way that parents had fundamental roles in shaping the original characteristics of the young adults at their early ages, the friends appear to have greater influences when children grow up to young adults. This is due to the fact that the young adults are likely to spend more time with their friends, and that young adults are at least mentally independent of their parents, which make them prefer to exchange ideas with their friends and learn from those who have similar goals. The First reason the young adults are more importantly influenced by their friends is that they tend to spend more time with their friends than with their families. As they grow up, time they spend within families becomes shorter, while time they spend outside and interact with their friends becomes longer, which make the influence of the friends greater, hence more important.  This is based on an assumption that individuals are more likely to be influenced by ones with whom they spend most of their time with.  Young adults usually work or study and spend their time at their work place or schools with their colleagues and classmates.  Moreover, it can be observed that many young adults live alone, leaving their families.  In this case, the influences by parents are much less smaller whilst those of friends are greater.  I myself left my family almost three years ago, and I feel my parents hardly influence over me in shaping my behaviour or making decisions, though we still keep in touch with each other mostly through emails.  On the contrary, I learn from my friends, who I met here, and thus am influenced by them in terms of daily life, thoughts and study.  On the basis of these considerations, influences of friends seem more important to young adults because they spend more time with their friends. The second reason is that young adults are usually independent of their parents at least in terms of mentality, which makes them tend to exchange their ideas with their friends and to listen to friends who has similar ideas and goals.  It is often happens that, when children grow up to young adults, gaps in thoughts and ideas between the young adults and the parents are increasingly widened.  This appears to make the young adults lessen, if not stop, exchanging ideas with parents, listening to them or taking their words, because the young adults now have their own world and because the gaps between them may lead to conflicts even though neither party is wrong.  Young adults then come to prefer to interact more with their friends, to exchange ideas with them, to take their advice and so forth that will be important influences. Additionally, it seems more helpful to exchange their ideas with their friends with whom they share similar goals and experience, since this is more likely to work in improving the young adults and in stimulating to make efforts toward their goals.  This is because ones who share common goals and experience can understand each other better, which makes their influence greater thus more important ot the young adults. However, it can be denied that parents also have influence on the young adults, which is mainly because they had fundamental roles in shaping original characters and behaviours of the young adults in their early childhood.  These parents who has brought the young adults up strongly shaped the personalities and behaviours of the young adults when they were really young.  These original personalities and behaviours seem to remain in them to some extent even though these original characteristics can be weakened as they grow.  In this way, it can be arguable that parents have influence on the young adults.  Yet, it is more importantly seems that the young adults are more greatly influenced by their friends because of the reasons that are previously mentioned. It has been proved that the influences of friends are more important than that of parents.  While the influences of the parents in shaping their original personalities and behaviours are noted, they are not significant as that of friends.  What is more significant is that friends more importantly influence over the young adults because young adults spend longer time with their friends and because they mentally become independent of their parents.