Youth Smoking Prevention Education: Beyond Video Ads to Experience!
Why Gyeongbuk Smoking Prevention Research Group Visited Realworld Seongsu
On Saturday, June 27, 2026, teachers from the Gyeongbuk Smoking Prevention Research Group visited Realworld Seongsu in Seongsu-dong. The reason they came from Gyeongbuk to this experiential content space in Seongsu on a weekend, rather than staying in a classroom, was clear. They were looking to find the answer in 'experience' to the question of how to make youth smoking prevention education more effective in the AI era and future education.
That day, the research group started with a special lecture titled "The Era of Experiential Education Has Arrived." They then directly experienced an interactive workshop combined with the Realworld Seongsu space. Teachers took on the role of students to play an educational content game called "Find the Boss" themed on diversity and inclusion, and the day concluded with a case presentation session by excellent smoking prevention research groups. It was a day where teachers concerned with smoking prevention directly experienced experiential education.
Why Did a Smoking Prevention Research Group Seek Out an Experiential Content Space?
The reason is educational effectiveness. The method of explaining the dangers of tobacco to young people through words or showing videos has been repeated for a long time, but it has clear limitations in actually changing students' behavior and awareness. Education through listening and watching doesn't stay in memory for long. In contrast, the experience where students directly become the protagonist in a situation, make choices, and face the results is different. The experience of making judgments while immersed in the situation lasts much longer than an hour-long lecture.
Behind the Gyeongbuk Smoking Prevention Research Group teachers' visit to Seongsu was a conviction in this effectiveness. And a real case supporting that conviction is being created right now. It's in the field of gambling addiction prevention.
A Change Already Underway: Experiential Gambling Addiction Prevention Education Combined with AI Technology
Realworld is developing experiential youth gambling addiction prevention education content incorporating AI technology together with Good Neighbors and the Korean Foundation for Gambling Problem Prevention and Healing, and is preparing for nationwide expansion from this year onward. This is a method where students become the protagonist in a gambling problem situation, follow the story, actually converse with characters implemented by AI, and experience the process of recognizing risk and escaping on their own. It is not unilateral information transfer education, but education where participants directly experience and learn.
This trend aligns with policy changes. Following amendments to the Gaming Industry Integrated Supervision Act, gambling prevention education at all elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide has been mandatory to be conducted at least twice a year from 2026. As youth's access to illegal online gambling has rapidly increased, the educational field has come to urgently need content that goes beyond formal material distribution and actually drives behavioral change. This is also why the Korean Foundation for Gambling Problem Prevention and Healing emphasizes the effectiveness of participatory, game-type content and experiential education.
Gambling addiction prevention is rapidly keeping pace with the times and becoming a case where institutions responsible for prevention education and leaders in experiential education join hands to create education that can actually prevent problems through experience. This structure can be directly applied to smoking prevention. Through experiential education in the AI era, that is!
Same Budget, Completely Different Results
Have you ever watched public campaign videos like gambling, drug, and smoking prevention playing at Seoul Station and Yongsan Station? Think about the budget that goes into producing one advertisement video and exposing it on TV or at places like Seoul Station and Yongsan Station. With that cost, you can create the most effective experiential education content through offline experience that AI could never replace in the AI era.
Video ads are good for showing but have poor educational effectiveness. Students ignore ads and messages pass them by. In contrast, experiential education created with the same budget positions students as protagonists in situations and stories. When combined with immersive technologies like augmented reality, NFC, GPS, chatbot AI, and voice recognition, the level of immersion rises further, and students learn by directly facing the results of their own choices. One-way exposure and participatory experience leave completely different results even with the same budget.
Will you spend smoking prevention campaign budget on one-time exposure of a single video, or on experiential education where tens of thousands of students repeatedly play and realize on their own? The gambling addiction prevention case serves as a good reference for this choice.
Why Connect Smoking, Gambling, Drugs, and Voice Phishing as One
Under the School Health Act, health education covers topics such as drinking, smoking, drugs, sexuality, electronic device overuse, and gambling addiction together. The risks young people face are not separate from each other. The mechanism of being swept up by peer pressure, taking one step out of curiosity, and finding it difficult to escape is similar whether it's smoking, gambling, drugs, or voice phishing.
Therefore, experiential education does not stop at just smoking prevention. The educational design where students become protagonists and directly experience moments of dangerous choices extends broadly to smoking prevention, gambling addiction prevention, drug prevention, and voice phishing prevention. It is a structure that educates comprehensive youth problem prevention in the most effective experience, supported by technology including AI.
It's Time to Change Youth Smoking Prevention Through Experience
KT&G has long continued youth smoking prevention social contribution projects, including the Youth Smoking Prevention Campaign "Green Nare." They have distributed smoking prevention educational materials throughout elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide and practiced social responsibility under the values of People, Community, and Planet. Interestingly, Imagine Planet, KT&G's youth startup hub, is also located in Seongsu-dong. For social contribution managers considering the next step in youth smoking prevention, you can directly verify the method of experiential education already being validated in the same Seongsu-dong.
The experiential education content being created in gambling addiction prevention is a good starting point. This method of positioning students as protagonists of the story, increasing immersion through AI technology, and drawing out actual behavioral change can be directly transferred to smoking prevention. The moment you change your advertising budget to an experience budget, the effectiveness of youth smoking prevention education changes.
In the flow of these times of change, on the last Saturday of June, a smoking prevention teacher research group came all the way from Gyeongbuk to Seoul's Seongsu-dong to visit Realworld Seongsu. Despite it being a weekend, about 40 passionate in-service teachers visited Realworld Seongsu. They directly engaged in experience-based experiential education that increased educational immersion and message comprehension effectiveness by incorporating the latest immersive technology including AI, from serious youth social issues like gambling addiction prevention to diversity and inclusion D&I education.
The Teachers' Highest Praise Comes from the 'Experience' of Moving Through the Space!
Realworld Seongsu Content Experience
In particular, the experience of actively connecting with the Realworld Seongsu space and finding clues while moving between floors is not about sitting still and listening to a lecture, but rather a design method that makes learners themselves the protagonists in content and stories while experiencing specific educational themes with their whole bodies—all elementary, middle, and high school teachers were enthusiastic about this experiential education method. Realworld's interactive workshops provide technology-integrated content designed to increase educational effectiveness and enable student immersion. The scope can extend not only to various social-emotional education and subjects like mathematics, science, and history, but also to serious social issues like gambling addiction, substance abuse, and smoking prevention.
Verified Educational Effectiveness of Experiential Education
Teachers agreed that with this level of immersion, they could deliver the educational messages they really want to convey to children in a highly participatory and immersive way through the combination of technology and storytelling. Throughout the education session, they gave praise and compliments such as "It's so much fun!" and "If children experience it directly, I think it would be really great!" What direction should our education take in the AI era? What innovations should future education make in the age of technology?
The answer they found that day together with the Gyeongbuk Smoking Prevention Research Group was precisely 'experiential education.'
Revolutionizing education through experience!
Realworld Seongsu, a Venue for Experiential Education
Becoming the Protagonist in Educational Stories with Space as the Stage!
Realworld Seongsu is a single stage where you become the protagonist of an educational theme. In a space decorated as a mystery hotel, various education can take place including diversity and inclusion, leadership, communication, problem-solving, and digital technology experience. It's not limited to just Realworld Seongsu. Our school classrooms, playgrounds, and auditoriums can all become stages for education with diverse themes.
Realworld's UniqueGood Points
Realworld, operated by social venture UniqueGood Company, is an Experience OS platform that transforms ordinary spaces into stages for immersive experiences. Realworld Seongsu is a directly-operated experiential space visited by over 100,000 people annually and has set consecutive Guinness World Records for three years running with Real Treasure Festival content. In the 2026 academic year, Realworld School was selected as a core AI EduTech service by the Ministry of Education, officially recognizing its capacity to supply experiential education to school settings.
Through no-code authoring tool Realworld Studio, in-service teachers can directly create and operate experiential content, and can design youth problem prevention education including smoking prevention to suit their purposes. What the Gyeongbuk Smoking Prevention Research Group teachers confirmed in Seongsu was that when education becomes experience, it truly reaches students.
Youth smoking prevention education, gambling addiction prevention education, drug prevention, and voice phishing prevention can be jointly created as experiential education rather than video advertisements. Realworld's offline spaces operate not only at the main Seongsu-dong location but also in Cheongju and Jeolla-do.
How Will Future Education Change in the AI Era?
The Era of Experiential Education Has Arrived
The emergence of AI has even greater ripple effects than the past emergence of the internet and smartphones. In this rapidly changing time, it is also a period of deep contemplation more than ever for teachers guiding future generations of youth. How should education change in the AI era? Through playable content experiences based on human-to-human interaction in offline spaces today, we have come a step closer to the solution through the experience at Realworld Seongsu on the last Saturday of June.
The era of experiential education in the AI age: an era where education is conducted through experiences that technology can never absolutely replace!
Realworld is a platform of social venture UniqueGood Company, which solves problems faced by society in unique and good ways.
Going forward, we will greet you with more cases of experiential education that revolutionize education through experience.
Curious about Realworld Seongsu?
https://seongsu.realworld.to/
Curious about Realworld's corporate training?
https://business.realworld.to/edu