+441518081136New age Addictions: A menace in progress
2nd International Conference on Addiction Research and Therapy
May 13-14, 2019 | Prague, Czech Republic
Vijay Bhasker Reddy Yetapu
VChangeU, India
Scientific Tracks Abstracts : J Psychol Cognition
Abstract:
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 tobaccorelated 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.
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.
E-mail: vb@vchangeu.com
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