Australian researchers identified more than 100 smartphone applications that appear to promote smoking. The study highlights the challenges governments face in keeping tobacco advertising laws in step with technology, reported France 24.
Applications designed for smartphones that tacitly or overtly encourage smoking are shaping up to be the latest front in the battle against cigarette advertising.
A study released this week in the British Medical Journal’s public health magazine, Tobacco Control, put the spotlight on the so-far overlooked phenomenon of using smartphone apps to promote or encourage smoking.
A team of Australian public health researchers at the University of Sydney identified 107 apps promoting a pro-smoking message on the Apple App Store and Android Market (now Google Play).
Just as the range of tobacco products is diverse, so too the types of apps, from simple wallpaper downloads of popular brands to programmes that simulate stubbing out of cigarettes, and animated games that recreate social smoking situations. The apps are either free or downloadable for a small fee, and while some include measures to verify that users are above a certain age, others do not.
One app, called 'Ashtray', transforms the smartphone screen into a garbage can. A short tap on the screen deposits cigarette ash into the bin, while a prolonged tap discards the entire cigarette.
Users can choose between three backgrounds for the garbage can, or use their phone camera to place it in a photo of their favourite spot for a smoke.
In another app, 'Puff Puff Pass', users select a caricature then choose a pipe, cigar or cigarette, and venue (lounge room, outdoor setting, office, or limousine). The rules of the game include a time limit to smoke two drags before passing it on to the next caricature, whereupon a player can win points or is reprimanded.
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