Repetition kills warnings

In its 2020 regulartion, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required that its various graphic warnings about the risks of cigarette smoking (the increased likelihood of cancer, heart disease, and so forth) be rotated quarterly. Suppose that you see a graphic warning depicting someone in a hospital with lung cancer. The warning might scare you that first time, or even the first five times. But after a while, you might habituate. The depiction might become like background noise. That was exactly the FDA’s concern. It believed that rotation of the various warnings was likely to reduce habituation and capture attention. So the solution was to portray someone in a hospital with lung cancer for a certain period, but then someone with rotting yellow teeth next, and so on.