back to article Boffinry breakthrough OF THE DECADE: Teens 'influenced' by friends

Social networking turns teens into cigarette-smoking, booze-swilling party monsters, researchers have claimed. Groundbreaking eggheads at the University of Southern California surveyed more than 1,500 high-school students and found that they were more likely to drink or smoke if they saw pictures of their friends doing so. …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Only possible response ..

    1. LarsG
      Holmes

      Influenced

      Who would have thought it? Never happen to me.

  2. Captain DaFt

    Next big revelation:

    Rain more likely on cloudy days!

  3. Andrew Jones 2

    30 kids out of 1500+ and they correlate that seeing pictures on social networks?

    It has nothing to do with packets being visible in shops, nothing to do with branding, nothing to do with seeing people on TV and in films smoking - I've been arguing this point for years. It's also nothing to do with seeing pictures of their friends smoking on social network sites - it's seeing their friends smoke IN REAL LIFE while they are physically in the company of their friends that does it, additionally seeing family members smoking, extended family members etc etc

    1.9% of respondents have tried a cigarette by April 2011 and this is a landmark revelation?

    1. rcorrect
      Pint

      @Andrew Jones 2

      You hit the nail on the head. Teenagers have been getting into trouble probably since man discovered how to make beer. Social media encourages internet addition which IMHO creates introverts who are less likely to hang out with teens while smoking and drinking.

      I hope a teenager doesn't see this comment as it clearly displays a picture of a cold beer, waiting to be consumed, followed by a loud and long belch.

      1. Captain Hogwash

        Re: creates introverts

        Introverts are not created. We are born.

      2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: @Andrew Jones 2

        followed by a loud and long belch.

        Debrett's is right, etiquette has gone out the window thanks to digital media...

  4. frank ly

    Time for some social engineering

    Flood Facebook with pics of neatly dressed, well scrubbed teens reading books while helping elderly people to cross the road.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Alert

      @frankl ly - Re: Time for some social engineering

      Reading books *while* crossing the road?! ;-)

      1. ItsNotMe
        Thumb Up

        Re: @frankl ly - Time for some social engineering

        "Reading books *while* crossing the road?! ;-)"

        Absolutely. Best way I know of to cull the population.

      2. frank ly
        Facepalm

        @Graham Marsden Re: @frankl ly - Time for some social engineering

        I may have tried to get too much concentrated goodness into it.

    2. Michael Dunn

      Re: Time for some social engineering

      Reading books while helping elderly people across the road could be somewhat dangerous!

  5. Chazmon

    Or it should be entitled. Teenagers exaggerate their coolness on anonymous surveys.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      or...

      Teens to stupid to see though empty boasting of other teens.

  6. Shinku
    Pint

    Breaking News:

    *BONG!* Child breaks rule set by adults, performs forbidden act.

    *BONG!* "Internet is extension of the real world" claims online forum member.

    *BONG!* Young people discovered to perform unwise acts in order to establish themselves in the social order.

    *BONG!* Redundant study deemed "utter waste of money".

    Exhibit A: 1980s American high school movies. Take your pick, any will do. As much money as he might happen to have, I'm fairly certain El Zucko doesn't have a time machine.

    Who do they think they're informing with this "news"?

    Studies, my arse.

  7. goldcd

    Cause or effect?

    If I drink and smoke

    I'm more likely to hang out with people who drink or smoke

    So I'm more likely to be facebook friends with people who drink or smoke

    So I'm more likely to see pictures of people drinking and smoking.

  8. The BigYin

    Over simplified?

    Peer pressure, mob rule, groupthink, circlejerk; yes, these are all a thing.

    Does social media add to this or, by making it easier to access other opinions, detract from it? With all the walled gardens and filter-bubbles in effect, I am siding with "add to".

    Has, what might be an interesting study, been over simplified for cheap and sensationalist journalism?

  9. Chris G

    Quelle surprise!

    It is truly amazing how social sciences studies just go round and round in circles trying to justify their jobs as 'scientists'.

    So they have discovered that young people who interact socially with other young people are influenced by their peers?

    I knew that when I was a young person a looong time ago and I'm not a social 'scientist'!

    Perhaps they should get out a bit more and maybe talk to a few parents.

  10. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Does it matter what you do at 15?

    Ans: only if you're still doing it at 40, or 50, or 60.

    So teenies smoke. It's no big deal - they'll soon grow out of it. 15 years after you stop, almost all of your health risks are the same as someone who's never smoked. In fact there is some evidence that TV campaigns, such as for nicotine patches can INCREASE the number of young and stupid smokers - on the basis that these make it easier to stop later, once they realise how nasty (and costly) it is.

    So from a health PoV, stopping in time is as good as never starting. Although during those intervening, all important to social acceptance and getting lurve years, you'll still stink of tobacco smoke.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does it matter what you do at 15?

      >Ans: only if you're still doing it at 40, or 50, or 60

      And still capable of doing it at 70, 80, 90....

  11. Code Monkey
    Holmes

    Splendid boffinry

    Perhaps the boffins can now turn their attention to where bears make stool.

  12. Anonymous Coward 101

    Right now on the BBC Sport Website...

    LIVE BREAKING NEWS:

    World Cup 2014 win unlikely - Dyke

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thinkof the Kiddies

    Ideal opportunity for a new NSA interception programme here: PRISSHM - Proactive Recognition of Intoxication and Smoking to Safeguard Health and Morals.

  14. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    I have a new study

    It concerns how American "scientists" have found new excuses to get funding while demonizing smoking and drinking.

    Come on guys, snap out of it. I think we're pretty much aware now that smoking can cause lung cancer, throat cancer and some other kinds of unpleasant things. Every time I see a pack of cigs or a pouch of tobacco, it has a big ugly "THIS CAN KILL YOU" sign on it. So could you stop flogging that (very) dead horse now and find something useful to study ?

    P.S. : I wonder how long it will take before they digitize Casablanca and edit out all evidence of smoking to produce a "pure" version ? Maybe they'll CGI the white cigs into red licorice or something ?

    1. paulll

      Re: I have a new study

      It's not good enough to prove that it's bad for the smoker though; That's not nearly enough ammo for sanctimonious, smug pricks who like telling people what to do. The objective is to show that it's contagious and harmful to others.

    2. SirDigalot
      Coat

      Re: I have a new study

      Like ET with the "guns to walkie-talkie gate" ?

      since everything has to be a "-gate" these days

      >>>> mines the one with the garden-gate

  15. h3

    In Japan nearly all the men smoke but they don't get lung cancer.

    Instead of repeating the obvious they should be trying to work out why it is.

    1. Ed_UK
      Boffin

      "In Japan nearly all the men smoke but they don't get lung cancer."

      Cancer rates certainly appear lower than, say, those in the US. Some interesting reading:

      http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/10/11/1193.full

      [...]

      Possible explanations for this difference in risk include a more toxic cigarette formulation of American manufactured cigarettes as evidenced by higher concentrations of tobacco-specific nitrosamines in both tobacco and mainstream smoke, the much wider use of activated charcoal in the filters of Japanese than in American cigarettes, as well as documented differences in genetic susceptibility and lifestyle factors other than smoking.

      1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

        It is odd that, after many years of assuring us that cigarettes unquestionably cause cancer, NOONE has yet shown a proven mechanism for this. The arguments remain stubbornly statistical.

        There are also some statistics indicating that, when you just consider the older age cohorts (that is, people who didn't die of cancer in their 60s/70s), smokers actually live LONGER than non-smokers. This is termed the 'smokers paradox', and is thought to be associated with the better prognosis applying to advanced heart conditions that older patients also suffer from. Smoking is posited to help relaxation. Here is an example ref:

        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559533/

        The problem with any work in this field is that it is heavily - indeed overwhelmingly politically charged. It is impossible to publish any work which raises any doubt that smoking is the most unhealthy activity that a person can undertake without running into a barrage of criticism, usually anecdotal. Smoking may indeed be very bad for one's health, but the social attitude that the science is completely settled, and that questioning any aspect of this assertion marks the questioner as a tobacco industry propagandist is equally bad for the proper operation of scientific study...

  16. h3

    (Perhaps it is something that if discovered could be used to help the Daily Mails more important types of Caner).

  17. Martin Budden Silver badge
    FAIL

    Boffinry?!

    Trick cycling methinks.

  18. Imsimil Berati-Lahn

    ...but Holmes!... Yes, Dr Watson. What is it?

    It's quite perplexing. I can't find any excrement, at all!

  19. SirDigalot

    So why does this not work

    If they are not rebellious?

    if we allowed them to drink and smoke all the time would they rebel as has been mentioned into being well behaved little angels?

    more to the point why does it only work with some? are they superior and therefore needed to harvest a superior master race? or are they inferior bucking the need for a group interaction therefore increasing the chances of a solitary life and loss of the genetic line that leads to it...

    after all monkeys who stray from the family pack get eaten by big arsed snakes!

  20. Sepulchre

    Who pays these morons to come up with this rubbish.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the Annual 'You don't say award...'

    For stating the bleeding obvious goes to...

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