SALT LAKE CITY - A new study by Brigham Young University researchers suggests teenagers miss the "Drink responsibly" messages when looking at alcohol ads."Basically, the adolescents, they don't really see the responsibility message," said Steven Thomsen, a professor of communications at BYU and lead researcher on the study, which will be published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. "Those who see it, do (so) for a minimal time."
...The study, which took more than a year to complete, evolved from a previous project in which Thomsen and his group analyzed the content of alcohol ads in Rolling Stone magazine. During that research, Thomsen said he noticed some of the advertisers included "Drink responsibly" messages but that the type size was relatively small.
Interested in how effective the "very small" print was on teenagers and if the messages were even noticed, Thomsen recruited 63 middle schoolers with an average age of 13 to assess the association between attention to and recollection of the messages' content.
"The reason we chose early adolescents is because that's when they are making the initial decision whether they'll try alcohol," Thomsen said.
Each teen was hooked up to a device that used the reflection in the cornea and pupil to track eye movements when they were looking at the ads. Teens spent an average of seven seconds looking at the ads but only 0.35 seconds looking at moderation messages, according to the study. They spent more time looking at bottles, product names, models and headlines than moderation messages.
Immediately after looking at the ad, most of the teens could not remember the general concept of the responsibility message...
This from the Cincinnati Post.
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