March 20, 2006
Mobile phones, an effective competitor to cigarettes
This is not new, but it's still interesting for those who may have missed it. From The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Five years ago the British anti-smoking group Action on Smoking ame up with an interesting hypothesis, an idea so intriguing that it was picked up and published by the prestigious British Medical Journal.
The group had noticed a correlation between a sharp rise in mobile phone ownership among teenagers in the mid-1990s and the first real decline in teen smoking, a downwards trend curiously pre-dating a major government anti-smoking campaign.
"Many aspects of mobile phone use provide teenagers with the same functions offered by smoking while offering an alternative for spending money," the group argued. "The mobile phone is an effective competitor to cigarettes in the market for products that offer teenagers adult-style."
Both cigarettes and mobile phones offer teenagers openings for conversations. Phones also offer adolescents "something to do with their hands, give them confidence, relieve boredom and fulfil social and fun needs in much the same way smoking does".
And phones, like smoking, can be used as a defence mechanism.
"When you are sitting by yourself, say on the bus … just get your phone out and play a game or something," said one teenage girl.
But teenagers don't have endless supplies of money. So when it comes to a choice of where to put their cash, phones seem to be winning out."
Related articles and studies:
-- Mobile bills put teenagers out of puff
-- Young Kiwis smoke less after txt
-- Young Cell Phones the Newest Teen Addiction
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