Gambling is more prevalent in Australia than any other nation around the world, according to data gathered by the Queensland Statisticians office “in total Australians lost $23.7 billion on all forms of gambling in 2016-17 — pokies, lotteries, casinos, racing and sports betting. That’s $1,251 for every man and woman over the age of 18.”(Mark, 2018). In spite of our country only accounting for less than 1% of the world’s population we currently have a fifth of the world’s pokies. We also have to deal with the fact that the “industry is a major donor to lawmakers and the Coalition government, and previous attempts at reform have failed. States and territories reaped $5.8 billion in taxes from gambling in the year through June 2015” (Scott & Heath, 2016).

We have access to data showing that “the social cost of gambling to the community is estimated to be at least $4.7 billion a year”, there is a rise of people seeking counselling for problem gambling and we have a rise in suicides from financial issues associated with gambling (Scott & Heath, 2016). Yet there is no movement in the policies to protect people from the system which is designed to be addictive with detrimental effects to their finances as well as their mental health. We can see that in our gambling behavior “the biggest change is in sports betting, with a 15 per cent increase in the amount of money Australians lost from the previous year in that category.” (Mark, 2018). In Australia gambling advertising is loosely regulated and there is almost no restriction on the development of apps which facilitate the ease of gambling behavior, sports betting apps are being developed faster and faster and making the act of placing bets more seamless.

We can see that there are parallels to the tobacco problem being faced in Indonesia, the unregulated advertising and push of making the product more appealing. In spite of vast amounts of data available to the public and policy makers the government in Indonesia seems extremely hesitant to challenge and restrict big tobacco for fear of the economic repercussions. One thing that the research is revealing is that the economic benefits are in actuality limited and that the social cost will begin to outweigh the money reaped from tax paying companies (Ahsan et al, 2008). Designers need to accept that they have an impact which is tangible through the work that they choose to undertake. They can either design slicker packaging, smoother apps, big aspirational adds and sell people highly addictive vices or they can try to mitigate the damage being done by these industries which are having detrimental effects on real human lives.

 

References:

Ahsan. A., Adioetomo. S., Barber. S., Setyonaluri. D. 2008. Tobacco Economics in Indonesia. Bloomberg Philanthopies.

Mark. D., 2018. World’s worst gamblers: Australia’s destructive love affair with sports betting continues to grow. ABC News. Viewed 18^th December 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-20/australia-grows-destructive-love-affair-with-sports-gambling/10396984.

Scott. J. & Heath. J. 2016. Gambling is killing one Australian a day, but it rakes in billions in tax. Sydney Morning Herald. Viewed 18^th Dec 2018. https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/gambling-is-killing-one-australian-a-day-but-it-rakes-in-billions-in-tax-20160928-grpypl.html

My interview was conducted in the process of researching the complex matrix of social beliefs about smoking among university students in Surabaya. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to talk to Neesa, a university student from ITS who also happened to be from the small but expanding percentage of the population who are young female smokers. We had talked to a few of Neesa’s peers prior to this interview and they had offered perspectives of smoking in line with the narratives we had found readily available in academic research, those of smoking being a stigmatised behaviour among women with allusions to prostitution, antisocial behaviour and rebellion against the Indonesian way of life. The perspective of most of the peers was that smoking was harmful, wrong and they could not understand why people would begin to smoke in spite of all these facts.

Neesa offered a different perspective, we were given an insight into the movement towards modern Indonesia with her opinion of the freedom that young women are embracing to engage in behaviours which have previously been stigmatised. Neesa also gave us a fascinating insight into the place of the behaviour among her peers, she stated that as a freshman at university her senior students offered her cigarettes during the first ‘hazing’ week stating that she and her peers would need them to cope with the stress of university life. The ritual of smoking has taken a place in her life which appears to mirror this suggestion from her elder students as her current smoking practice tends to be in the afternoon post university where she will meet up with her friends to smoke and unwind.

One of the areas we talked about at length was about the understanding of health effects of smoking and how she believes her smoking affects how others view her. She said that she is aware of the health effects but is not able to quit because she would have nothing to take smoking’s place as a means of relaxing. An interesting statistic recorded in the WHO report on Indonesia showed that only “9.5% of daily smokers are successful in quitting” which is astonishingly low (2018). It was interesting to hear this as it showed a clear understanding of the risks she was taking in continuing to smoke and yet she was adamant that smoking was crucial to her success at university. We can see this reflected in the data, it has been published that “Up to one-half of the 57 million smokers in Indonesia today will die of tobacco-related illnesses. Some 78 percent of Indonesians started smoking before the age of 19 years.” (Barber Et. Al. 2008). This data is free to download and readily available as well as having been released in government education campaigns and yet even highly intelligent and educated individuals such as Neesa maintain their smoking habit for various social reasons.

 

References

Barber. S., Adioetomo. S., Ahsan. A., Setyonnaluri. 2008. Tobacco Economics in Indonesia. Bloomberg Philanthropies. 978-2-914365-40-6.

WHO. 2018. Factsheet 2018 – Indonesia. WHO Office for South-East Asia. Viewed 13 Dec 2018. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272673/wntd_2018_indonesia_fs.pdf;jsessionid=98444EFF9BF4C980BF238B9BFFE3EF9D?sequence=1

The Indonesian government has released guidelines and regulations for public spaces which should remain smoke free, these have manifested in the placement of ‘no smoking’ signs in areas such as schools, healthcare facilities and places of worship. These regulations are a response to the quite startling statistics surrounding tobacco consumption in Indonesia. In 2008 WHO inquiry into the tobacco issue ranked Indonesia the 3^rd highest smoker per capita in the world. A spokesperson from the KPAI (an Indonesian government initiative to protect children’s rights), Chairman Hadi Supeno, stated that “24 percent of male and 2 percent of female children aged between 12 and 15 started to smoke. The number of children exposing to the danger of smoking was even greater as 70 percent of men in the families were active smokers.”(People’s daily online, 2010).

Although the government has created policies of smoke free environments the reality is far from the legislation, “Even though schools are supposed to be smoke free areas, the informants often see their male teachers smoking in their offices, in the schoolyard and in classes.” (Nawi et al. 2007). The students at the schools watch the behaviour of the teachers and over time a model for behaviour is formed, being taught that you shouldn’t smoke will continue to be unsuccessful in these environments if the students are expected to watch their teachers and peers engage in smoking behaviour. Other individuals interviewed stated that they “smoked together with their friends on their way to and from school, at the bus/train station, at amusement centres when they socialize and even in the mosque.” the behaviour is ubiquitous with sociality and as a result even places of worship are not maintained as smoke free.

My map of the Arab district was an attempt to show the places that young people go to when they are learning about their world, society and how to be good citizens of their city. These places such as the schools and mosques should have non-smoking signage and dedicated smoke free zones have been plotted onto the Arab Quarter to show locations that ideally should be safe places and smoke free for the young people of the area. Whether this is currently a reality is hard to prove but with more government support and growing awareness these areas could become centres for a new generation of smoke free Indonesians.

 

References:

Nawi Ng, Weinehall, L. and Öhman, A. 2007, ‘If I don’t smoke, I’m not a real man’—Indonesian teenage boys’ views about smoking’, Health Education Research Volume 22, Issue 6, pp. 794‐804,  http://her.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/6/794.short

People’s Daily Online. Indonesia struggling to deter children from smoking. Written 8^th Feb 2010,  http://en.people.cn/90001/90782/90880/7122690.html, Accessed 6^th Dec 2018.