Want to kick the smoking habit? Text messages can help.

• By Donald White
• Jun 30, 2011

Peer pressure may lead people to start smoking, but now technology is allowing social support for cell phone users who want to quit, ScienceDaily reports.

A trial program called txt2stop studied the effect that supportive text messages had on smokers who wanted to kick the habit. The study, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and funded by the Medical Research Council, found that people who received the periodic stop-smoking texts were more likely to stop than smokers in a control group.

This isn't the first evidence we've seen of the power of positive social support on smoking cessation. A 2008 study by researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego, found that people tend to quit smoking in groups. According to a story in the New York Times, the researchers said one person's decision to stop smoking could have a ripple effect on the smoking habits of that person's entire social network.