Crop-tops, capris, and… cigarettes? Not cool!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
How can we stop teens from smoking? Social engineering, of course!
Dr. Cheng Wang and team at UC Irvine examined anti-smoking interventions in two high schools.
They compared two types of social networks — or friend group-types. One group with many close bonds. Another with more connections across more students. They tested the intervention on the most popular kids in each friend group.
AND?
In both network-types, targeting ten to thirty percent of popular kids maximized smoking reductions. Influential students created an anti-smoking trend that pervaded the social network.
And that’s how we make smoking “so five minutes ago”… like skinny jeans.
Wang, C., Butts, C. T., Hipp, J. R., & Lakon, C. M. (2026). Peer influence decay and behavioral diffusion in adolescent networks: A simulation approach. Science (New York, N.Y.), 392(6797), 506–511. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aea9297