Philip Morris hates Vodafone

A report from last month indicates that mobile phone use may be responsible for sharp declines in teen smoking. The analysis focuses entirely on economics: mobile phone bills are expensive, teens have limited cash, talking is more important than smoking, so they pay the phone bill rather than the Marlboro man. Nice and neat, and surely a fair enough assessment.

But I can't help thinking that this explanation is incomplete. After all, teens especially are not the rational actors that most economists pretend people to be. There's another important angle here: mobile phones are cigarette surrogates.

Think of the conventional wisdom for quitting smoking. Hold a pencil in your hand (to give your fingers something to hold). Chew gum (to keep your mouth occupied). Now the mobile phone: fits in hand, can be held aimlessly for hours? Check. Gives your mouth something to do? Check. Smoking also helps you look cool (my theory on this is that smoking makes you seem cool because it gives you an object with which to ignore the immediate surroundings. But it's just a stage prop. The truly cool don't need the object), and similar posturing can be achieved with proper phone usage. The phone can likewise lend an air of mystery or rebelliousness, depending on its use.

So my guess is that the economic angle is well and good, accurate so far as it goes. But it's not complete, and it so happens that the mobile phone replaces cigarettes more than just economically. Is an SMS an equal tradeoff for a smoke? Is a quick chat worth 2? Is pulling out your phone an acceptable alternative (in terms of social positioning) to lighting up, in the high-pressure world of teen politics? My guess is yes, yes, and yes.