The cell phone seems to compete with cigarettes as teen statements of fashion and rebellion, the scientists suggested in a letter published in the British Medical Journal. The mobile phone has a niche in teenagers' lives that occupies the same place as cigarettes. We've just got to sit and watch it for longer, to see if it turns out to be real. However, American researchers say any link would probably not be mirrored in the United States. Saul Shiffman, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, is skeptical and believes the teen smokers and cell phone users are different types of adolescents.
Smokers tend to be from lower income groups.
In the United States, cell phones are restricted to affluent teens and are much more expensive to use than conventional phones, Schellenbach said. Smoking rates among U.S. high school students went down from 36.4 per cent in 1997 to 34.8 per cent in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. About 25 per cent of American teens were using cell phones by the end of 1999. By the end of this year, that is expected to increase to about 32 per cent, said Knox Bricken, a wireless communications analyst at the Boston-based technology research firm The Yankee Group. Mobile phone marketing in Europe promotes self-image and identity, which resembles cigarette advertising, the scientists said in their letter.