The Most Addictive Things in Society

Great research looking at the worlds most addictive stuff. Top of the list - media!

Top 10 addictions (in America)

1. Media

2. Tobacco

3. Alcohol

4. Marijuana

5. Food

6. Gambling

7. Prescription drugs

8. Bulimia

9. Cocaine

10. Hallucinogens

Grogger: Is this really the right thing to do?

Recently the City of Melbourne launched a series of initiatives designed to improve pedestrian safety. They've used every trick in the new-wave marketers handbook including a 'edgy' little movie called 'Redman and Greenman' (below)

...and an online / mobile game called Grogger. It's Grogger that worries me. This initiative seems like a wild stab in the dark, and it would be interesting to know the thinking that lay behind it. I'd love the City of Melbourne, and those behind the campaign to respond, tearing this post apart. So far they have been open saying "Usually we try to propose an evidence-based approach to the measures that we use but there are certain things where you don't have a solution that's already proven so I think you have to start exploring new possibilities," Dr Bruce Corben, Monash University Accident Research Centre. However, I think, if anything, Grogger may increase, and not decrease the undesired behaviour. Here's why:

Grogger is a mobile / online game based on iconic, and retro-cool arcade game Frogger.

It involves a person trying to cross the road without getting 'smashed'. The character drinks and burps as they attempt to cross the road, getting increasingly intoxicated and more likely to get 'smashed' by a tram or car. There is of course also a Facebook page that goes along with this.

My concern is that the game is making a previously undesirable, dangerous and silly behaviour (drunk jaywalking), trivial and popular. It's taken a behaviour 'drunk jay walking' and branded it, 'Grogger', it's then turned this into a game to 'play'. The game can easily be replicated off-line in the real world. That is, crossing the road drunk will now become an opportunity to have a quick game of 'Grogger'. You can imagine wayward yet normal, young people challenging each other to a game of 'Grogger' as they attempt to cross the road drunk.

Further, by 'branding' the act of walking drunk across the road, and giving it a catchy title, are you not normalising the behaviour of drunk jaywalking? 'If it's got a title it's got to be a big issue. If it's a big issue then lots of people are doing it. If lots of people are doing it then so can I'.

I applaud the City of Melbourne to undertake initiatives aimed at increasing pedestrian safety. Gaming is a hot subject right now, especially as many studies show that people can learn very effectively through gameplay. However, in this case the question is what are they learning? I actually think they are learning to play 'Grogger', that is learning (and practicing) how to try and cross a road drunk. Again, I would sincerely like to be proven wrong and further understand the behavioural principles that lie behind this initiative. Any takers (and please don't say 'to raise awareness of the issue and get people talking')