Anti-Smoking Ads Encourage Teen Smoking
Monday, July 23rd, 2007
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
