Anti-Smoking Ads Encourage Teen Smoking
A new University of Georgia study, published in the August, 2007 issue of Communications Research has found that the more exposure middle school students have to anti-smoking ads, the more likely they are to smoke! Talk about an opposite effect!
Hye-Jin Paek, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia, and co-author of the study, along with Albert Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that many anti-smoking ad campaigns have the opposite effect on teenagers. She says that they backfire because they encourage the rebellious nature of youth. “They don’t want to hear what they should do or not do,” she says.
According to Paek, peer pressure has the most direct effect. She says that ads should focus on convincing teens that their friends are listening to anti-smoking warnings.
“Rather than saying, ‘Don’t smoke,’ it is better to say, ‘Your friends are listening to this message and not smoking,”Paek said. “It doesn’t really matter what their peers are actally doing.”
Do any of your teens smoke, or have they tried smoking? What do you feel would be the best way to reach teens on this issue?
teens, teenagers, parenting teens, parenting teenagers, teen smoking, teenagers smoking, teens and smoking, University of Georgia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Communications Research
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:38 am
Interesting stuff. That completely reminded me of a study on D.A.R.E. and how it has an opposite effect on the children ( http://www.druglibrary.org/think/~jnr/uicstud.htm ). Daresucks.com is another site as well (I just checked it, they are updating the site. Despite the really childish domain name, the site is actually full of good information).
As a teen, I did smoke, mostly marijuana, but I did have a cigarette now and then. I think the only time I really bought packs was my girlfriend at the time smoked. I can see the correlation between heavy exposure to the product and its use. Its how sometimes people say “there is no such thing as bad publicity”
As for a solution to the problem, I mean, it doesn’t get much better than honest education on the subject as well as occupying your children’s time in activities they enjoy. Personally, I had too much free time with both parents working, so that just left me with a dual feeling, boredom and abandonment. That will 99% of the time never add up to something positive.
Sorry for the long comment post here, but they really need to cut back on the ads, stuff like the commercials the “Truth” group puts out, really I think harms the cause. I really feel that gives a person a choice to either be a smoker, or be an annoying person. I guarantee that the people that don’t smoke because of those ads, probably weren’t going to smoke anyways, while the people that may have been on the fence before, would not want to be associated with a cause that bothers people during their day.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
*shrug* Smoking is dumb. Some people get it, some people don’t. I’m lucky enough to be a part of an awesome group of friends that wouldn’t tolerate any of that at all. Keeps all of us clean, ‘cos we all want to keep our friends.