Here is the question that was put to 113,000 doctors, from border to border and coast to coast: ‘What cigarette do you smoke, doctor?’ Three of America’s leading independent research organizations did the asking. And the brand named most was Camel. Well, doctors like all of us smoke for pleasure. Camel’s rich, full flavor appeals to their taste. And Camel’s cool mildness registers with their throats, just as with millions of smokers the world over. According to a recent nationwide survey, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.

Abbott and Costello program, February 21, 1946

Of course, that depended on which radio program you were listening to. Jack Benny maintained that Lucky Strike means fine tobacco. And later, if you listened to Dragnet, you learned that Fatima was the best of all long cigarettes. At least until Chesterfield took over sponsoring that program and Jack Webb changed his tune.

It’s interesting, nearly 80 years later, to look back at these campaigns. Sure, lots of the ads focused on flavor or mildness. Some concentrated on the sources of their tobacco. They all tried to differentiate themselves from the competition. But bringing doctors in suggests that there was a lot more going on. The tobacco companies were actively trying to combat the idea that smoking was hazardous. People smoke for pleasure. It’s fun and sociable. Everyone does it. And despite what you may have heard, it doesn’t have any adverse health effects. Just ask these doctors.

This would go on for another 23 years, before a 1969 law prohibited cigarette advertising on television and radio, and required the now ubiquitous message on all labels: “Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health.” Thirty years after that, the industry agreed to a $200 billion settlement with 46 states to avoid litigation related to decades of deceptive practices.

Think about that for a minute. The attorneys advising the tobacco industry told them it’s better (cheaper) to just pay the $200 billion than to actually try to fight the lawsuits that were on the horizon. That’s an incredible amount of liability for an unbelievable amount of damage. And by 1998, most of the people who were buying Camels based on what the doctors were saying in that 1946 ad campaign weren’t around to file lawsuits anymore.

If only people could have known, all those years earlier, that the industry was lying to them.

In hindsight, the transition from a focus on flavor and tobacco quality to the idea that doctors recommend smoking particular brands is a bit of a red flag. Clearly, they’re fighting growing concerns about the health effects of smoking while also leveraging those concerns. Sure, smoking may be hazardous if you use our competitor’s brand, but doctors smoke Camels. And they had the marketing budget to drown out opposing perspectives.

It’s hard to say when the industry knew that smoking was dangerous. While evidence suggests that a link between smoking and lung cancer was first identified as early as 1882, the proof that the tobacco companies knew about the health effects of smoking and hid it from the public only goes back to 1965. Before that, the industry was just making sure that the theories about smoking were being balanced by opposing viewpoints. We have to make sure all sides are equally represented, right?

When there’s money to be made, the loudest voices are those with the most to gain.

The asbestos industry knew in the 1930s that their workers were dying at alarming rates, but they covered up the danger for more than 50 years. And while restrictions on asbestos use began in 1973, its use wasn’t fully banned in the United States until 1990.

Lead was outlawed in paint in 1978, a mere 4000 years after Nicander of Colophon identified the acute effects associated with high lead exposure. Clearly, we had to be really sure it was dangerous before we stopped using it.

In all three of these cases, the dangerous health effects of products were clearly understood and ignored by their industries until the government stepped in and told them they can’t keep killing people in the name of profit. While this could become a political argument about the role of government, I’ll just point out here that in the United States, there were Republican presidents in 1973 and 1990, and Democratic presidents in 1978 and 1998. Protecting the citizenry was important to both parties in the 20th century.

And that brings us to technology.

Even when factoring out eating habits and physical activity changes, there is a correlation between technology use and ill-being among children and teens. And while elimination of technology use among students is neither recommended nor practical, Rosen et al do recommend setting limits and boundaries on technology use.

A 2018 Turkish study found that “children’s inappropriate use of… technological devices in terms of content, duration, frequency, and posture… pose a variety of health risks, including developmental problems, musculoskeletal problems, physical inactivity, obesity, and inadequate sleep quality.” Recommendations include monitoring the time, frequency, and content accessed by children, and ensuring that they have adequate physical activity, eating habits, sleep, and nurturing social environments.

A study of adolescent technology use and its effect on mental heath found that “reports of both time spent using digital technologies and the number of text messages sent were associated with increased same-day attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms. Adolescents’ reported digital technology usage and text messaging… was also associated with poorer self-regulation and increases in conduct problem symptoms.”

On the other hand, a 2019 study pointed out flaws in earlier research, and used fancy mathematical modeling across three large-scale datasets to examine the correlational evidence for the effects of digital technology on adolescents. The findings were negative, but small, and the study concluded that they do not warrant policy change.

These are canaries in the coal mine. We have some hypotheses that all this technology use might not be great for kids. There’s a little bit of evidence to support this idea, and there’s a little bit of evidence to refute it. For now, we need to recognize that everything is probably harmful in excess. Limiting student technology use is probably not a bad idea. Making sure that the technology activities we have students engage in actually enhance learning in some way seems like a good approach. Avoiding the use of technology to do things that can easily be done without it might be worthwhile.

The real warning will come when the technology companies start promoting their products as more healthy (or less unhealthy) than their competitors. When TikTok starts claiming that using their app promotes mental wellbeing, we have a problem. When Twitter announces that their product will save you from the perils of disinformation, beware. When Google and Apple start linking smartphone use to improved physical and mental health, it’s time to take action.

History tells us that the industry will know about negative effects of their products long before the rest of us. When they start defending an attack that isn’t coming yet, it’s time to take notice.