I read an interesting article this week about smoking in films and the
influence this may have on young people choosing whether to smoke or
not.
The research published in the Journal Thorax says that
adolescents who saw the most films depicting smoking were 73% more
likely to have tried a cigarette than those exposed to the least and
that this group were 50% more likely to be a current smoker.
As the post-mortem begins into who’s to blame for the riots, one thing for sure is that the image of young people has once again taken a real battering.
Like you, I’ve heard every proposed solution from military action and harsh sentencing to water cannons to curfews. Just about everyone including parents, teachers, the government and even the police has been criticised in the media blame game.
Following its success over the past Academic year, the R U Different team is now planning new programmes with authorities and schools commencing in September.
With over 385,000 pupil responses gathered in 2010-2011, the programme is now the largest Social Norms Survey plus Interventions programme in the UK.
The R U Different project has unearthed many interesting facts over the past academic year.
Wherever we run the programme one constant does however prevail – that young people really do over-perceive the participation of their peers in risky behaviours.
Take our recent findings from 5 schools in Manchester.
The Truth about Teens and Breakfast
It’s the question that can be heard from thousands of parents around the UK at around 8.15am as their son or daughter rushes out of the house to go to school.
“Did you have your breakfast?”
We recently surveyed 2231 year 9’s (13 and 14 year olds) about their online activity.
Some of the highlights are:
97.4% have some form of Social Media Page, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc
68% have admitted to chatting to a complete stranger online
REALITY
3 out of 10 young people said they have met up in person with new people / strangers face to face as a result of online chat.
PERCEPTION
The perception however is that 71% of their friends and other people in their year have met up with new people / strangers following an initial online meet.
WILL PERCEPTION SOON EQUAL REALITY?
Currently Young People who have not met someone as a result of an online conversation believe themselves to be in the minority when in fact they are still in the majority. Research shows that this can cause internal pressure, leading to young people participating in risky behaviours such as these earlier than they otherwise might.
Our UK wide data (250,000 question responses gathered to date) tells us Over Perceptions exist across areas including Tobacco, Alcohol, Sexual Activity, Drugs, Bullying and by promoting the TRUTH to young people we are making a positive and measurable difference.
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