*Please pardon the un-styled mess why I am rethinking and re-designing my blog!*
I saw an interesting series of commercials this weekend advertising a website to help people quit smoking. I’m not a smoker, so I can’t really understand what its like to quit, but I think the commercial below portrays what its like in an interesting manner.
The commercial points you to their website: http://becomeanex.org which features several video testimonials on the homepage. Within a few clicks I discovered that part of the site is a social network with blogs, forums, and groups. It seems somewhat similar to facebook.
I think this is a very interesting approach to a smoke free life. The New York Times published an article in may about factors that help people quit smoking. The study suggests that smokers are more successful when quitting in groups. The same social bonds they formed while smoking are now being used to foster kicking the habit.
The infographic from the article also illustrates how quitting in groups can have affects on other groups of people – encouraging others to quit – or pushing those that still smoke to the edges of social networks. http://nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/05/22/us/20080522_SMOKING.html
It will be interesting to see how these virtual social bonds play a role in quitting smoking.
Visit the site and let me know what you think. Will social networking help, or is it just a waste of time? http://community.becomeanex.org/
1 Comment
Posted in design, design ethics, technology, Web Design
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Zac says:
This is a really interesting post! I teach an IT and ethics course where students have to use technology to solve a real world problem.
This is an awesome example of that in action. Thanks for sharing!
October 6th, 2008 at 7:45 am