Hi Everyone, I am a third year psychology student at Liverpool John Moores University.
For my dissertation I am exploring the different factors of uptake, sustainment and cessation of smoking. To obtain data I have created an online survey, I am looking for non-smokers, current smokers and former smokers 18+ to fill in this questionnaire if they would like to help me.
The data is completely anonymous. at no point are person details (name etc) taken. Furthermore, individuals participating in the survey will be able to exit the webpage at any point during the survey and their data will be deleted straight away. If individuals are wanting to see results of the whole data, when I have finished I am more than happy to post a copy or send people a copy of my dissertation if interested.
Oh yes, 26 is a massive pain, I may think about splitting it up into two parts as it takes a while, but thank you for your feedback and persistence with Q26!!
Completed the survey. I think its worth saying that I don't think advertising helps at all. When watching the "easy way" they said if you tell a smoker its killing them, it stresses them out so the first thing they do is smoke. I think this is very true. We are bombarded with advertising saying that smoking kills from a very young age. People are not that stupid, they don't need to be constantly reminded. I always knew I should quit, but i did not want to. Eventually that changed for me but the cause of that was unrepresented. People smoke because society is backwards and largely broken.
I don't think you will ever stop people smoking unless the underlying problems in society are fixed. I don't want to blame my problems on society or make excuses. But maybe if people were more compassionate and supportive of each other less people would smoke. Who knows, I think this is a very complex issue.
Please let us know any findings of your research, might be helpful for people trying to quit.
Does anybody know anyone that quit because they saw an advert or was frightened by a health warning?
Wow thank you for your feedback, it's very helpful I understand completely, the aim of my study is to identify the most common reasons individuals start, sustain and stop smoking and look the factors in between to see whether they correlate, in order to try and identify more helpful support for individuals trying to quit. Thank you for this, it's very interesting, I appreciate it a lot. Yes that's no problem at all, I can email you a copy when I'm finished
I agree that the casual relationship between the anti smoking campaigns and quitting is probably weak. There may be a greater link with preventing people from starting to smoke. In The States the first Surgeon General's warning was in 1964, so most current smokers, started after the warning. If you started to smoke after the warning was implemented, it's hard to think the warning would cause you to quit.
Hello! Thank you for your feedback it's greatly appreciated, the role of the media is a main focus in my study, so receiving feedback is very helpful. The reasons for the questions is to see how much it really effects individuals, does it effect non-smokers more than smokers etc as I feel it's not been researched enough.
For me I started because I was young, so young that it seemed cool. When I was a kid I could not wait to grow up, so smoking seemed like an adult thing to do. It actually caused a lot of additional stress, the standing out side shops trying to get someone to buy them. The running away from teachers, the fear of getting court by parents and so on. Everybody knew it was stupid, but we wanted to grow up and hated being treated like children. I think by the time I was 21 I already wished I never started. In the social group I was in I would have felt like an outcast if I did not smoke. When you are young and at school these things seem to be very important.
These are mainly societal problems I think. I don't think children start smoking for the same reasons as adults, things are different. I don't think you can blame the parents either, not directly. Maybe collectively because they they are part of the societal system which caused the children to want to smoke or think its an acceptable thing to do at the time.
For me I started because I was young, so young that it seemed cool. When I was a kid I could not wait to grow up, so smoking seemed like an adult thing to do. It actually caused a lot of additional stress, the standing out side shops trying to get someone to buy them. The running away from teachers, the fear of getting court by parents and so on. Everybody knew it was stupid, but we wanted to grow up and hated being treated like children. I think by the time I was 21 I already wished I never started. In the social group I was in I would have felt like an outcast if I did not smoke. When you are young and at school these things seem to be very important.
These are mainly societal problems I think. I don't think children start smoking for the same reasons as adults, things are different. I don't think you can blame the parents either, not directly. Maybe collectively because they they are part of the societal system which caused the children to want to smoke or think its an acceptable thing to do at the time.
The bold part is so true for me, too. I live in a country where every 3rd adult smoke, so I still feel like that nowadays. I just can't "connect" in the same way with friends that still smoke. Not to mention that smoking is allowed in all bars/pubs/restaurants here, so going out is not always a happy-fun experience (because like 90% of people who go out - smoke...).
Rant over Still smoke free after 1.5 years, though!
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