Sept 19 : Australian researchers have come up with a new way to help people quit smoking – supportive text and online messages.

The radical programme, ‘Quit Coach’, is an instance of ‘persuasive technology’, which will help influence human behavior.

The system works by automatically sending a text through web to a smoker, which says, “No, don’t do it” whenever he or she feels like lighting up.

“We wanted to expand the relationship with the online therapist/counselor into something that goes to any place, any time,” said Peter Benda, senior research member at the University of Melbourne.

Benda says that since it combines web-based counseling with social network and mobile technologies such as SMS and MSN, the new system is one of a kind.

“You might get into a crisis situation where you could broadcast a message using SMS to your [online] Quit Coach, which your whole support group will see,” he says.

The online service will help send a SMS back in order to sway the smoker not to light up and also the support group could also rush to the at-risk quitter’s aid by means of the mobile.

The same service can also be customized to send out messages during at-risk times, such as while drinking alcohol.

Benda says, a quitter might even record a message explaining whey do they want to leave smoking, or even the images of damaged tissue on cigarette packs can also be flashed.

Congratulatory messages at milestones in the Quit program are also send out through the text message system. (ANI)

Tags:Smoking