Change Region ABOUT THE CAMPAIGNLearn more about our campaign: 'My Health. My Choice' and how the Social Norm approach can also help you make your own choices.THE QUIZTake our quiz and find out if you too are trapped by the Social Norm Approach!WE LOVE NUMBERSAre you also crazy about statistics and numbers? We do! Find out what your peers have answered to questions such as: How much do you drink per week?WHAT ABOUT THE GOVERNMENTEvery country has its own rules when it comes to alcohol and drugs. Did you know that it is actually forbidden to smoke weed in Belgium?HELPFUL SITESWe have collected a number of useful sites for you where you can go if you have questions about your own alcohol or cannabis use or your gaming behavior.WE ARE SOCIALOn our socials you can participate in challenges and challenge your friends to do the same. Earn stickers and join the conversation with your peers. Follow us!CONTACTDo you have questions about this campaign, would you like to catch up on your own use? Please contact us. We are ready for you!

I'll decide if I smoke weed when I Netflix and chill

did you know most people my age don't smoke weed at all?

OH SNA(P)

SNA stands for Social Norm Approach. We use this approach to determine what we think about other people and how they change our behavior.

We are not a fan of calling something ‘bad’ or ‘good’. We believe in the power of an individual’s choice. However, how you make this choice, may be influenced by misconceptions.

Let us paint you a picture

You live in a shared home. It’s Thursday and tomorrow you have an important training for your part-time job.

Lying in your bed, you plan to turn in early today. You can hear your roommates having fun in the living room. You’re bummed at your appointment the next day, but you decide to get over yourself. Scrolling through your insta-feed and stories you see friends drinking beer, laughing and having a grand ol’ time. You switch to Reddit and after some mindless scrolling, you see a meme. It shows a woman holding a glass of wine bigger than she is. It says: “WINE. IT'S WIN WITH AN ‘E’ AT THE END”.

FOMO kicks in. “DAMNIT! It’s 10 P.M and I’m contemplating going to bed, while literally EVERYONE IS HAVING FUN. AM I MISSING OUT?”

Instead of turning in, you decide to go back to the living room, grab a beer, kick back and play games with your roommates. Each time an hour-and two beers-pass, you calculate the hours of sleep you can still enjoy. “Meh.. I can function with 5 hours of sleep, right?”

CHECK IT!

Sounds familiar?

This process shows how we are influenced by others to shape our own behavior. Sure, socializing would be more fun than sleeping early. But, you are unaware that, at the same time, maybe 90% of your colleagues is doing the exact same thing you were planning to do: turning in early to have a fresh start tomorrow. It’s just less of an interesting topic to post about on IG.

We tend to overestimate the unhealthy behavior of others to justify our own unhealthy decisions. We believe knowledge is power. And we feel it is important you know the true figures, so you can make an educated decision.

Take the test! And see how you would compare your own behavior to

TAKE THE TEST

Don’t feel like taking a test? We also have a bunch of numbers for you

CHECK THE FACTS

Surveys
and Tests

In our campaign we use statistics we got from the Euregional Health Survey.

This online survey was conducted from September 2019 to January 2020 and was presented to citizens, aged 12-26 years old, living in The Netherlands (Zuid Limburg), Belgium (Provincie Limburg, Ostbelgien and Liège) and Germany (Aachen, Euskirchen, Heinsburg and Bitburg-Prüm). To ensure safety in answering questions regarding substance use, respondents remained anonymous throughout the survey.

We asked respondents to tell us how much they smoked weed, drank alcohol or played videogames. We also asked respondents to tell us how much they think other people in their age group smoked weed, drank alcohol or played videogames.

OPINIONS
AND GUESSES

Then, we asked respondents to tell us what their opinion was on others being drunk frequently, smoking weed often and playing video games a lot. We also asked respondents to estimate how other people in their age group would feel about them being drunk frequently, smoking weed often and playing video games a lot.

This results showed clear and distinctive findings that are in line with what was proposed through the Social Norms Approach. In general, many people overestimate unhealthy behavior of their peers. At the same time, they tended to underestimated healthy behavior of their peers.

CHECK OUT THE FULL REPORT

Cooperation

We're not going to make a long speech about it, but we couldn't have done this project without the cooperation of some fantastic partners. This is why we would like to recognize this fruitful cooperation and thank all our partners.