While You Were Streaming 2023: Lights, Camera, Tobacco?

Tobacco imagery is surging across top entertainment - including in nearly every 2024 Academy Awards Best Picture nominee - exposing millions of young people to depictions that glamorize and normalize tobacco use, according to Truth Initiative’s sixth annual "While You Were Streaming" report, “Lights, Camera, Tobacco? How rising smoking and vaping imagery in top entertainment influences e-cigarette use and fuels nicotine addiction among young audiences.” The report finds increasing tobacco depictions in the most popular streaming shows among 15- to 24-year-olds, music videos, as well as youth-rated and Oscar-nominated movies. On-screen smoking, which is often glamorized and portrayed as edgy and cool, is rising despite well-established research that it influences young people to start using tobacco products - a conclusion reached more than a decade ago in a 2012 Surgeon General report. Research from Truth Initiative has also found that exposure to smoking imagery in streaming shows can triple a young person’s odds of starting to use e-cigarettes - today’s top tobacco product among young people. This adds up to a serious public health threat, putting a new generation at risk for a lifetime of nicotine addiction. Find the full report: truthinitiative.org/lights-ca...

[@jenniehakim7076]

Depiction is not endorsement.

[@NeYamaKim]

I've noticed a significant increase too. It's off putting.