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Journal of Psychology and Cognition | Volume 4
May 13-14, 2019 | Prague, Czech Republic
Addiction Research and Therapy
2nd International Conference on
J Psychol Cognition, Volume 4
New age Addictions: A menace in progress
Vijay Bhasker Reddy Yetapu
VChangeU, India
Big Tobacco is always innovative and creative in their
approaches and strategies in reaching out to target
groups through new age social media platforms. Evaluating
the current trends is very crucial for the advocacy of tobacco
control in the age of social media. As tobacco industry acts
as a global force to influence the younger generation to
adopt tobacco products through social media platforms,
even though many tobacco-free laws and regulations are
enforced, it is difficult to fight the global tobacco epidemic
in the age of social media via traditional tobacco control
approaches. Surrogacy has come around in a big way to
support promotion of tobacco brands suppressing the
tobacco control acts and make their way to influence the
youth. Students and young people are our target group,
they are the active users of social media. To counter big
tobacco tactics, we have created multiple social media
pages for tobacco control to engage youth in promoting
better health and staying out from tobacco forever. We
post multiple innovative and creative posters on social
media pages related to tobacco control and cessation
highlighting how tobacco causes health and environmental
damage. We provide support and solutions to tobacco
addicts to quit their addictions. A study published in
nature journal has listed our work on tobacco control with
maximum interactions comparing with other tobacco-
related fan pages such as ‘Quitnet’ and ‘BecomeAnEX’.
VChangeU Facebook pages on tobacco control stood in the
top 3 most 'liked' Facebook pages in the world. Though we
have done little effort in utilizing the power of social media
our work got recognized by scientific research agencies. As
tobacco industry is leveraging the freedom of social media
to influence the youth, we need to equally counter them
with powerful anti-tobacco ads and promotions to keep
them away from tobacco products.
Speaker Biography
Vijay Bhasker Reddy Yetapu is founder and president of a true non-profit
organisation VChangeU. His area of expertise is to promote longevity of
life through innovative and creative approaches. His research addresses
motivational processes involved in healthy living across the life span.
Having over 20 years of critical thinking experience in a consulting,
management, corporate role in IT and over 10 years in non-profit
leadership. Delivered over 2000 sessions on Healthy Living in schools,
colleges, universities, industries, companies and conferences. He has
received several national and international scholarships for his work on
health which includes 2 times scholarship awardee for 15th and 16th
“World Conference on Tobacco or Health”, “International Conference
on Public Health Priorities in the 21st Century: The Endgame for
Tobacco!”. His paper “A good sleep makes you younger by the day” was
selected to present in 3rd International Sleep and Breathing Conference
held at Barcelona, Spain.
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