Trundling over Calton Hill with my older girlie monster this morning, I spotted plenty of discarded cigarette packets beside the path. Each now, by law, displays a large health warning occupying about half the box area. Smoking can give you a dicky ticker, a droopy dingle dangle, dreadful dentures and depleted dendrites. (Naturally, this has created some great business opportunities for those who decline to be lectured by government busy-bodies about their own health and lifestyle choices.)
What I noticed though was how all such appeals were “inward looking”. That is, your health and well-being might be damaged — it’s about how you feel. There are no “outward-looking” campaign messages, where the perception of others about you is used as the emotional lever. What if the packets read “Your partner would be pleased if your breath smelt better?”, “Your friends would respect you more if you quit smoking”? Social pressure is, in my mind, more likely to work than appeals to direct self-interest where the smoker has already understood and dismissed such issues.
It reminds me of a conversation I had last night about Chinese medicine. As I understand it, recent technical innovations in sprung-loaded fake acupuncture needles have finally enabled double-blind tests of acupunture therapy, and it was found to work for a range of conditions. Although I’m a relative skeptic on most of these things, western medicine does only deal with relatively simple cause-effect conditions. Complex “systems” issues of general well-being aren’t handled well. There really is such a thing as culture, and it does condition your thinking.
Is there a similar “philosophy” problem in communications technology? Are we in the post-Enlightenment west so ego-centric and self-absorbed that we’re unable to see the fundamentally social nature of communications? Is this what is leading carriers to try mobile TV and other minor stuff? Even ringtones were misunderstood as being a content, rather than social signalling, medium. It’s not what you hear from the tones you buy, but what others sense about you.
Perhaps it’s no accident that so many new applications are emerging in east Asia. The problem is a deep cultural one, not a superficial product design or commercial execution one. But one to ponder when allocating your pension and investment dollars.
PS - I don’t smoke tobacco, because it’s a crap way of getting a small dopamine buzz. But if you do, it’s none of my business.
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