Report warns of impact of social media on consumption of addictive substances

The Addiction Switzerland Foundation has just published its annual report “Swiss Panorama of Addictions 2022 - Digital transformation and addictions: welcome to the Wild West”[1]The report provides an overview of the most recent developments in the field of addictions. It focuses on digital technology, particularly social networks, whose growth also affects problematic consumption products such as tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs and gambling.

With 27% smokers, Switzerland has not recorded a decrease in its smoking prevalence in a decade. The proportion of smokers is 32% among 15-24 year-olds and 36% for 25-34 year-olds. This high prevalence results in a significant burden for the community: cigarette consumption alone (without other tobacco products and passive smoking) results in economic costs ranging from 3.8 to 6 billion euros each year, including more than three billion for health expenditure.

The role of social networks highlighted

The report states that the Internet and social networks offer new opportunities to promote potentially addictive products and place targeted advertising, particularly aimed at young people, on an ongoing basis. To restore its tarnished image, the tobacco industry is trying to normalize consumption by positioning itself on the modernity of new products containing nicotine, which it promotes via influencers on platforms popular with young people (Instagram, Tiktok). Although the Internet is not a lawless zone, the application of the law in force in Switzerland remains difficult on social networks, as shown by the presence of these influencers and the online sale of tobacco and nicotine products to minors.

According to a recent Swiss study conducted among adolescents aged 15 to 19, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat are also the platforms where content related to the consumption of addictive substances is most often read, posted or shared (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and electronic cigarettes). Whether it is personal publications or photos, accounts and people followed, these substances are omnipresent and their consumption is totally trivialized. According to the study, this accessibility of products and their normalization contribute to encouraging consumption and maintaining nicotine addiction among young people.

A phenomenon reinforced by the covid19 pandemic

The use of digital tools has been particularly reinforced during the health crisis. Social networks have become real platforms for information, but also for disinformation. A Swiss study shows that the presence of young people aged 10 to 18 on social networks has increased during lockdowns. An opportunity for tobacco companies that have carefully designed marketing campaigns on these platforms to recruit new users by promoting new tobacco and nicotine products (heated tobacco and electronic cigarettes).

During the lockdowns in several European countries including Switzerland, tobacco manufacturers promoted special offers on social media and highlighted the "contactless and home delivery" of their heated tobacco and vaping products.

Call for stronger anti-smoking measures

Led by health organizations, the popular consultation initiative "Children without tobacco" received a clear majority of votes on February 13. It was thus approved by a double majority of the people and the cantons, despite strong opposition from the tobacco industry. Although this vote represents a breakthrough for the protection of minors against tobacco marketing, the efforts need to be continued. To limit the attractiveness of tobacco products to young people, the authors of the report want to introduce plain packaging, a lever that has proven its effectiveness in more than 20 countries around the world. Significant and constant increases in the prices of tobacco and electronic cigarettes should also be implemented to limit consumption.

Switzerland is still at the bottom of the European Tobacco Control Scale ranking, a report on the state of public anti-smoking policies implemented in European countries. The country, which remains to this day one of the last countries not to have ratified the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), is today considered the stronghold of the tobacco industry in the world. Moreover, political processes remain very influenced by the tobacco industry and the report calls for real awareness in this area.

Keywords: Switzerland, marketing, social networks, advertising, tobacco, vaping

©Generation Without Tobacco

AE

[1] Swiss Panorama of Addictions 2022 - Digital transformation and addictions: welcome to the Wild West, Addiction Switzerland, published on March 9, 2022, consulted the same day