Teen Smoking Case Study

Teen Suicide and Teen Smoking Epidemics In the seventh chapter of Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, readers are first introduced to a case study about increased rates of suicide of teen boys in Micronesia. Gladwell explains that suicide in Micronesia is common and it is triggered by the slightest things. Almost all of the suicides are males that are in their late teens and living at home. Usually, these teens are triggered by arguments with their girlfriends or parents. Gladwell then tells readers that teen suicide is a fatal epidemic in Micronesia that is related to another fatal epidemic: teen smoking in the West. Nobody really understands how to fight teen smoking. He also claims that teen smoking is self-destructive experimentation

There was a study done by David Phillips to prove the theory that suicide is contagious. He was able to print lists of suicides on the front page of the country’s most popular newspapers. He found that immediately, suicide rates begin to jump nationally. When people saw that many others were committing suicide, they felt they could too, and it became contagious. Gladwell explains that smoking follows the same logic. When asked how they first started smoking, almost all of the select few smokers explained that they knew someone who smoked. Gladwell calls these people “permission givers.” Permission givers are Salesmen that are able to manipulate vulnerable people like teenagers, and show them that whatever they are doing is okay because someone else is doing it too. Groups become a huge impact on these vulnerable teens, for example, it is easier to start smoking when you are in a group than it is when you are alone because of peer

Suicide and smoking are two very different things because if someone is addicted to smoking, he can potentially quite at some point. If someone commits suicide, there is no coming back. It is a permanent action. Some critiques do not believe that the suicide epidemic and the smoking epidemic can compare to each other. Reporter Alan Wolfe writes “Suicide may not have any essence, but if it has one, it is a private act of a person with serious mental disturbances and not a language at all. Anyone who believes that suicide is contagious the way the flu is contagious may well be distracted from giving the kind of attention that a potential suicide victim needs, the help to deal with problems inside, not behaviors outside” (Wolfe, 2000). While Gladwell claims that suicide and smoking are enhanced by others, this reporter thinks that suicide is a problem that is not contagious at all, but rather a mental disorder. Wolfe believes that nobody can influence a person to commit suicide; it is the individual that makes the decision for himself, unlike the smoking