Subject:  Marketing mobiles to teenagers (Maisch).
Date:     Sat, 04 Nov 2000 045844 -0600
From:     Roy Beavers 
To:       guru 
--------------------------------------------------

.........From EMF-L.......

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Marketing mobiles to teenagers
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 08:53:48 +1100 (EST)
From: Don Maisch 
To: roy@emfguru.com

Dear Roy & All

I wonder what Sir William Stewart, chairman of the UK Independent Expert
group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP), would comment on the below Reuters article:
"Cell Phones Replace Cigarettes As New Teen Addiction"?

Remember, in section 1.53 of the Summary and Recommendations of the IEGMP
report it is specifically stated:

>" 1.53 If there are currently unrecognised adverse health effects from the
>use of >mobile phones, children may be more vulnerable because of their
>developing >nervous system, the greater absorption of energy in the
>tissues of the head (paragraph >4.37), and a longer lifetime of exposure.
>In line with our precautionary approach, at >this time, we believe that
>the widespread use of mobile phones by children for >non-essential >calls
>should be discouraged. We also recommend that the mobile >phone industry
>>should refrain from promoting the use of mobile phones by >children
>(paragraphs >6.89 and 6.90)."  END

The mobile phone manufactures have learned a few lessons from the "Tobacco
Wars". One of those lessens is how to market phones (or cigarettes) to
teenagers. We already have a new "Joe Camel" running around for a Vodafone
commercial ( in Australia) It is precisely because the mobile phone
industry's PR advertising ploy is the same as the one employeed by the
Tobacco industry back when they were flogging cigaretts to kids.

I believe it was Professor Gerard Hyland who remarked that we are embarking
on the  world's largest biological experiment [from mobile phone use]. Too
bad its the youth of the world who will be the rats for this study.

Don Maisch



Friday November 3 10:19 AM ET
    Cell Phones Replace Cigarettes As New Teen Addiction
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001103/hl/smoking_1.html

    NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The cigarettes found in the hands of many
of today's British teens are slowly being replaced by an equally
addictive--albeit healthier--obsession: the mobile phone.

According to a pair of UK researchers, a rise in mobile phone use during
the late 1990s coincided with a decline in smoking among 15-year-olds. The
prevalence of smoking fell to 23% in 1999 from 30% in 1996--the year mobile
phone use skyrocketed among 15- to 17-year-olds, report Anne Charlton from
the University of Manchester in the UK and Clive Bates, director of
London-based Action on Smoking and Health.

``We hypothesise that the fall in youth smoking and the rise in ownership
of mobile phones among adolescents are related,'' the authors write in a
letter published in the November 4th issue of the British Medical Journal.

 The researchers suggest that many teens cannot afford to sustain both
habits and prefer the cutting-edge technology. Besides, the device is
associated with many of the traits that attract teens to cigarettes: a
sense of individuality and sociability, a desire to rebel and the need to
bond with friends, the team notes.

``The marketing of mobile phones is rooted in promoting self-image and
identity, which resembles cigarette advertising,'' Charlton and Bates write.

 ``As ownership increases, mobile phones will become essential for
membership of peer groups that organise their social life on the move and
by means of mobile phones,'' they conclude.

    SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2000;321:1155.



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