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Anti-smoking group reaches teens where they hang out—in Minecraft

To beat 'um, sometimes you have to join 'um. 

 

Sarah Weber

IRL

Posted on Mar 4, 2014   Updated on May 31, 2021, 4:34 pm CDT

Minecraft players have used the building block game to do some pretty impressive things, from giving a virtual tour of Apple’s headquarters to helping raise money for cancer research. Now, it could be the latest tool in a non-smoking campaign.

According to a Novus study, six out of every 10 Swedish teenagers begin smoking simply to show how “fearless” they are. The Swedish anti-smoking organization A Non-Smoking Generation wants to curb teen smoking from this angle by constructing a “Fear Clinic” in Minecraft.

“With the Fear Clinic we want to help young people to talk about fears, instead of hiding them behind a  cigarette,” Non-Smoking Generation chairman Ann-Therese Enarsson said in a statement. According to her group “young Swedes are invited to talk about their fear with a psychologist on stand-by” within the Fear Clinic.

If the idea catches on and proves effective, it could open the door to any number of similar problem-solving facilities. Picture, for example, a chain of in-game health food centers where teens can go to swap nutritious recipes, thus fighting the obesity epidemic.


All images via A Non-Smoking Generation

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*First Published: Mar 4, 2014, 8:02 pm CST