I was having evening tea with my mother, and there was the usual chai par charcha going on. The nine-year-old boy in our neighbourhood was becoming naughtier by the day. She recalled how he was always being told by his mother not to do this or that.
My mother then remembered what she had read some time earlier about human nature. To make someone not do something we just keep on saying “don’t do it”. We actually never give the person an option, that is, “don’t do that, do this”. The boy was repeatedly told not to play with the television remote but was never given a toy at that particular time to play with. It was a valid point.
We realised that maybe some problems we face today can be solved by telling people what to do rather than what not to do.
Tobacco use-related deaths are increasing. Advertisements appear on TV screens, at multiplexes and on cigarette packets. They all speak about the ill-effects of tobacco, and advise people not to smoke. And this has been going on for a long time now. People watch them just as they watch the movie. I have even seen people making fun of the advertisements. We don’t see any drastic change happening; rather, every day more youngsters seem to be joining the group of tobacco-users. How well it would serve the purpose if the ads tell them what to do if not smoke when the body craves for it. I guess it will be possible to make doctors and scientists come on screen and make recommendations as to what a person can consume when the body asks for a nicotine fix. Maybe, this way people will slowly get over it.
Similar experiments can be applied to the problem of alcohol consumption. When people don’t have anything else to satisfy a bodily demand, merely closing bars will not help. They will search for it anywhere and will not hesitate to get illegal stuff.
What we need is a slight twist in initiatives, changing their objectives altogether. There are many who want to quit bad habits; it is just that having reached a stage, they don’t have an option . Maybe we should develop ideas to make them do so.
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