Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Why People Smoke

I. Introduction

We did this survey about Smoking because it is a serious problem in most countries. Smoking affects the smokers and people around them and affects the environment. For example in social terms, people will stay away from you because of the bad smell of smoke, and some people think that people who smoke are bad people or smoking is bad behavior. In health terms, most people know that smoking can cause lung cancer, but it can also cause many other cancers and illnesses as well as reproductive problems. In economic terms, smokers will spend more money on cigarettes, so they will have low income and smokers will have trouble with money in the future. In these days both men and women are smoking; “about 35 percent of adult men and 25 percent of adult women in the United States smoke cigarettes” (Seal, 1998, p-31). People start smoking, often when they were teenagers, for different reasons; some smokers smoke because their parents smoke, and some of them smoke because they have stress in their life and some of them smoke because they have family problems or because of divorce. It is difficult for smokers to quit smoking after they start to smoke. “People become psychologically dependent on smoking as a way of reducing anxiety and coping with different situations. Because of these physiological and psychological forces, quitting is difficult and the relapse rate is high” (Seal, 1998, p-31).

II. Purpose

We did this survey for only smokers, to know why they smoked, how often do they smoke, where they smoke, with whom they smoke, who smokes more, males or females, and what the best way to quit smoking and what they feel when they smoke. Also we do this survey to find solutions to this common problem in most countries and to reduce the number of smokers in the further. Y. Ababatin, F. Al Alqussab, K. Urdaneta, and W. Chin did this survey.

III. Hypothesis

I thought males would say that they smoked more than females because females cared about their lives more than males. I thought half of males would be smokers. I thought most smokers smoke every day and most of them smoke with friends. I thought most smokers feel relaxed when they smoke. I thought most students smokers smoke because of study stress and most smokers who have a job and are married smoke because they have job stress and family problems like divorce. In general, I thought most smokers know that smoking affects their body and it may kill them because of smoking, and most smokers try to quit smoking but they can’t control themselves.

IV. Materials

In our survey we asked six questions for only smokers, to get specific information about specific people, and the questions were: Do you smoke? How often do you smoke? How do you feel when you smoke? Have you ever tried to give up smoking? Why do you smoke? and do you smoke mostly alone or with people?. The types of questions were yes/no questions and multiple-choice questions.

V. Methods

We asked 20 different people from different places around SIUC like Faner building, the library and the student center. We went outside and we asked only smokers. We asked males and females of different ages and from different countries to get different answers. We gave the survey and waited until they filled it out to have the result at the same time. I think we had a good survey about smokers, because we asked different people in different places and the people were very kind to do the survey. We think our choices on where we did it could have influenced the result in why people smoke.

VI. Data

See Appendix A

VII. Results

According to our survey, 70% of smokers have tried to stop smoking. 90% of smokers smoke every day. 37% of smokers smoke because they feel relaxed when they smoke. 22% said they feel nervous or smell bad when they smoke, and 19% of smokers feel satisfied when they smoke. 41% of smokers smoke because of stress, and 36% of smokers smoke because they think it’s relaxing, and 18% of smokers smoke for fun, and only 5% of smokers smoke because they can’t control themselves. 55% of smokers smoke with people, 35% of smokers smoke alone. In general, most smokers have tried to quit smoking, but they did not stop and about half of smokers smoke with people.

VIII. Conclusion & Discussion

According to the result, my hypothesis was right, that most smokers smoke every day and they smoke with people. I don’t think that our survey was perfect, because we asked only 20 people, which is not enough for an excellent survey. I think people told me the truth because they didn’t have to provide their names. In my opinion, the best way to have more people is to put the survey online to have more people from all over the world. Next survey I would like to make more questions to learn more about them, and concentrate on only teenage smokers to have specific information, and also to learn more about what the reasons people smoke.

IX. References

Seal, B. (1998). Smoking. In Academic Encounters: Human behavior. pp. 31–33. New York:

Cambridge University Press.

X. Appendix B