Pro-smoking apps for smartphones: The latest vehicle for the tobacco industry?

38Citations
Citations of this article
91Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.
Get full text

Abstract

Background: Smartphone use is growing exponentially and will soon become the only mobile phone handset for about 6 billion users. Smartphones are ideal marketing targets as consumers can be reached anytime, anywhere. Smartphone application (app) stores are global shops that sell apps to users all around the world. Although smartphone stores have a wide collection of health-related apps they also have a wide set of harmful apps. In this study, the availability of 'pro-smoking' apps in two of the largest smartphone app stores (Apple App store and Android Market) was examined. Method: In February 2012, we searched the Apple App Store and Android Market for pro-smoking apps, using the keywords Smoke, Cigarette, Cigar, Smoking and Tobacco. We excluded apps that were not tobaccorelated and then assessed the tobacco-related apps against our inclusion criteria. Result: 107 pro-smoking apps were identified and classified into six categories based on functionality.42 of these apps were from the Android Market and downloaded by over 6 million users. Some apps have explicit images of cigarette brands. Conclusions: Tobacco products are being promoted in the new 'smartphone app' medium which has global reach, a huge consumer base of various age groups and underdeveloped regulation. The paper also provides two examples of app store responses to country-specific laws and regulations that could be used to control the harmful contents in the app stores for individual countries.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

BinDhim, N. F., Freeman, B., & Trevena, L. (2014). Pro-smoking apps for smartphones: The latest vehicle for the tobacco industry? Tobacco Control, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2012-050598

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free