Media Literate Teens Less Likely to Smoke

Smoking has long been considered “cool”, but smoking can cause significant damage to your skin. Cigarette smoke generates free radicals on the surface of the skin, which can lead to skin damage and premature aging. The constant pulling motion will lead to lines and wrinkles around the mouth. Smoking dehydrates the skin, and leaves it more susceptible to infection.

Despite this, teens often start smoking due to peer pressure, concerns about weight gain, and because it makes them look and feel more mature. Many movies aimed at teens often promote subtle pro-smoking messages. For teens who are not that media savvy, these messages are likely to influence their smoking habits.

A new study suggests that helping teens become more media savvy can help them reduce their likelihood of taking up smoking.

Many movies involve subtle “pro-smoking” messages which can, in turn, move teens to start smoking.

Teaching teens how to recognize, analyze and evalute media messages, including advertising, may be an effective tool in the war against smoking.

In this study, researchers examined responses from 1211 high school students, in areas such as current smoking habits, potential future smoking habits, and their media literacy in terms of identifying fact from fiction in media and advertising about smoking.

Students who scored high on media literacy were less likely to be smokers now, and were less likely to pick up smoking in the future. These students were more able to determine that advertising may be leaving important facts out, and were more thoughtful about the messages portrayed by the media.

This study was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

More research is needed, but it seems that smoking prevention for teens will get a boost with increasing media literacy.