The movies-and again,indeed my post is about todays most influential means of Mass Communication-have proved once again,that just how strong their hold over the youth is.

As reported in The Lancent(which was the July 2003 issue) The exposure to smoking in movies was assessed for 3547 adolescents,between  ages 10-14 who had never tried to smoke before.

They studied participants’ exposure to smoking in movies  by asking each student to indicate which films he or she had seen from a unique list of 50 movies. The movies had been previously coded for incidents of smoking.

Of course,no one had realised the powerful effect it had on the children….

2603 children were sucessfully contacted 13-26 months later,to see if they had initiated smoking.[Students who reported any smoking (just a few puffs, one to 100 cigarettes, and more than 100 cigarettes) were classified as having initiated smoking]

THE RESULTS:

Movies,have an iron claw,an upper hand when it comes to what is right and wrong.Adolescents tend to follow blindly withought realising the media is leading them astray.They tend to ruin  their health in order to achieve the “cool”status,as  publicised and glorified by the media.

The mind is like a white cloth,you dip it in red and it changes red,dip it in blue and blue appears,You dip it in tobacco,and we have smoking…..the mind should be dipped in the knowledge that movies can and do often air things that are not right,we as the youth have to take a stand and say no to smoking and tobacco,our voices when raised for the good can influence,not only the ones who knw and love us,but also people who we have never seen or heard before…..

Stop smoking…..