Social Smoking - an Observational Study

The importance of social factors is well established in research on initiation and maintenance of smoking. The increased likelihood to smoke in social contexts or to mainly smoke in the presence of others is even defined in a technical term known as “social smoking”. However, numerous studies about this phenomenon are based on surveys, experiments, or indirect measures on social media. Observational studies of actual smoking behavior in the real world are rare. We observed real-world smoking behavior at the workplace and hypothesized that social smoking is more prevalent than smoking alone and that social smoking is seen more in women than in men. In a passive field observation over a two-week period, we observed a total of 73 adults (24 women, 49 men) during their smoking break at the entrance to their workplace. The categories for observation were predefined and documented on an observation sheet. Descriptively, we could confirm both hypotheses. In particular, the smoking break of social smokers lasted significantly longer than those of single smokers; despite this, all social smokers only smoked one cigarette during their break. Furthermore, 48.9% in our sample smoked first before talking. Within single smokers we observed increased phone use compared to social smokers. Further research is required to comprehend the link between social environments and smoking behavior,
particularly for social smokers taking gender differences into account, and to counteract the strategies the tobacco industry has used to market smoking as a social activity.