Nobody Needs a Vape with a Screen

When a friend pulled out his vape at a playoff baseball viewing party earlier this month, it immediately caught my eye. I was used to marveling at the different disposable e-cigarettes (weird flavors, seemingly endless brands) he bought every time the last one ran out of nicotine, but this product was different. It had a screen. While he was vaping, the device played a silly animation that reminded me of a primitive version of Pac-Man.

This week, for the sake of journalism, I went to my local smoke shop and sure enough, e-cigarettes with screens were everywhere. One of the products on the shelves, the Geek Bar Pulse Another, the Watermelon Ice Raz vape, featured a rudimentary animation of moving flames. E-cigarettes with screens first started hitting the market late last year and have only recently become widely available. Online retailers sell e-cigarettes with screens showing what they look like planets, rocketsAnd cars going in space. The screens are small (only a few inches wide at most) and inexpensive: These products sell for as little as $25 and can last several months.

The Watermelon Ice Raz vape I saw in the store reminded me of the loading screens of an old Game Boy Color. I could see how adults like me could be seduced by the nostalgia of it all. The problem is that these electronic cigarettes may also appeal to children. It is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to purchase e-cigarettes, but these devices have been popular among young people since they were first popularized by Juul. Although teen vaping rates have fallen in recent years, thanks in part to public service campaigns warning children about the dangers of vaping and nicotine addiction, the addition of a screen risks reversing the progress that has been made. Robert Jackler, a tobacco marketing expert at Stanford University, told me that a screen full of animations sends the message that e-cigarettes are “something for fun, play, and recreation.” Imagine you’re in eighth grade and the cool kid in your class is using an e-cigarette with a moving flame curtain. You’ll want one.

These devices are so new that it’s unclear to what extent kids use them, but they carry all the warning signs. Vaping companies are famous for selling products in kid-friendly flavors like Banana Taffy Freeze and Cherry Bomb, and display vapes could be the next method to attract kids. The e-cigarette industry “will do whatever it takes to introduce new features to attract new users, and this is just another example of that,” said Laura Struik, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in the Okanagan who studies youth use. e-cigarette, he told me. Mr. is one of the most popular electronic cigarette brands among young people. Fog has already launched a display electronic cigarette.

Emily Moorlock, a senior lecturer in marketing at Sheffield Hallam University who writes about youth vaping, told me that screen vapes risk becoming a fad, with the fad spreading among children because someone they are looking for uses them. This was definitely my experience as a child. I remember begging my parents for a Game Boy because the other kids at my elementary school had Game Boy. Electronic cigarettes are similar: Government asks the children The best explanation for why they tried vaping is that a friend did it.

Screens can make e-cigarettes even more addictive. Even the simplest visuals, such as retro video games, have been shown to cause the brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of pleasure and reward. Three experts told me that even the more primitive e-cigarettes I’ve encountered (those that play small animations on loop) can elevate dopamine, thus increasing users’ cravings for these products.

Tony Abboud, president of the Steam Technology Association, a lobby group, described these to me as a technological advance. Aside from animations, many of these screens tend to show how much battery and vaporizable nicotine juice is left in the device. Even though youth vaping rates are falling, public health groups are trying to brand e-cigarettes as the “next bad example” of how the industry markets to children, Abboud said. “Just because a new technology has a new feature does not mean that feature is designed to allow the product to be marketed to children,” he said.

Abboud and other e-cigarette advocates argue that e-cigarettes not only encourage children to become addicted to nicotine, but also It is also a tool to help smokers quit smoking. Electronic cigarettes may benefit public health because they are safer than cigarettes and as effective or more effective than other anti-smoking products on the market. Even flavored e-cigarettes that appeal to children may help persuade adults to replace their cigarettes with e-cigarettes.

But a screen serves no purpose other than cheap entertainment. If adult vapers want a signal that their product’s battery is low, this can be solved with a small power light like a smoke detector. Flames and constellations are definitely not necessary. After years of panic over teen vaping rates, it looks like kids are finally realizing they shouldn’t vape. Why risk ruining that because of a small screen?