OUMH2203

791006086129002

FAKULTI:
PENDIDIKAN DAN BAHASA
SEMESTER/TAHUN:
MEI 2013
KOD KURSUS
OUMH2203
TAJUK KURSUS
ENGLISH FOR WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION
NAMA: MOHD NAZRI BIN MAT NAYAN
NO MATRIKS: 791006086129002
NO KAD PENGENALAN: 791006086129
NO TELEFON: 019-9502457
EMAIL: nazrinayan@oum.edu.my

PUSAT PEMBELAJARAN: OUM PAHANG

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MEMORANDUM
To

: Director of Institute of Occupational Safety and Health

From : Manager of Institute of Occupational Safety and Health

Date
Subject

: 30 JUN 2013
: Using of Mobile Phones: an Analysis of Social and Medical Problems
In present days information is the key of succeeding in everything. To get information

and data we have to communicate between each other as fast as possible. Mobile phones are the
perfect answer to this matter, and has become a necessity for todays people. However, there are
many voices who believe that mobile phones are the reason for some medical and social issue.
Firstly, it is considered that excess using of mobile phone can damage social life. For
example there are many people who prefer to talk by phone rather than meet with others, and this
could affect their capacity of managing with real world and real problems. In fact, in most of the
cases, they are actually become an introverted, in which case could serious distort their
perception about social life.
Secondly, there are some rumors about brain damaging by microwave phone system, and
it is believed this could lead to deadly diseases. Moreover, some scientists suggest that is better
to use hands free system with phones instead talking directly on phone. Although, no illness
could be linked with phone communication system, more and more people start to wonder if
some of this gossips are true.
In spite of those problems there is no question that advantages of mobile phone overcome
disadvantages. Modern people depend on it, and now, everything is linked to mobile
communication. In addition, with new generation of smart phones, people around the world have
the advantage to be adequately informed anytime anywhere. Furthermore, mobile phones are the
perfect instrument in distributing information and news. For example, the world was informed
about Egypt demonstration from news posted on social network thru mobile phone.

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On the whole, the downside of using mobile phones seems to be insignificant comparing
with benefits, and in it is believed that it will continue to be the mainly way to communicate
between us.
The simple telephone that Mr. Grahambell developed has come a long way. Nowadays,
mobile phone can do various things at once. A person can watch TV, browse the internet, and
take pictures and many others. But like any other technology it has its pros and cons.
There are people who argue that hand phone as much as they are handy, they are also
causes some of social and medical concerns. Ironically, as much as mobile phones bridges gap in
communication, it also alienates the people from themselves. For example, in a friends
gathering; instead of talking during the meet-up, people take out their hand phones and start
tinkering it hence impairing the individuals communication. There are also people who believe
that cellular phones emit a certain radiation that can cause medical problems like cancer. There
was a study conducted about the radiation emitted by hand phones and although the research is
not conclusive, it suggest that hand phone usage might indeed contribute to certain illness. And
there are some people who are more concerned of the disposal of mobile phone batteries. These
people claim that throwing discarded batteries into normal trash pose a threat in terms of health
and safety of the society and those cellular phone manufacturers should implement proper
disposal of batteries.
Personally, I have always believed that there are two sides to every story. There will be
advantages and disadvantages, people should use it wisely. There is no doubt that hand phones
are helpful yet it can create problems for us. The way I see it, the user should balance the positive
and negative effects to limit possible problems that it might cause after all, we are all responsible
for the things we own such as these high-tech mobile phones.
It is evident that the use of mobile phones brings us many problems as well as benefits,
and thus there is an opinion that the demerits brought by a mobile phone prevail over the merits.
Personally, I disagree with this view.

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On the one hand, a mobile phone poses some negative effects for its user in several
aspects. The first impact is in medical terms. It is inevitable that a mobile phone would create a
certain level of radiation while being used .Much scientific research has pointed out that such
amount of radiation would potentially lead to serious diseases, such as cancer and tumor. Thus a
long-time use of mobile phones might harm ones health. Another problem often observed is how
the inappropriate use of a mobile phone interferes with peoples activities. For example, during
an important conference, calling or receiving mobile phones would distract audience attention
and impair the quality of the conference.
On the other hand, a mobile phone can bring about more benefits. The principle benefit is
how a mobile phone increases the possibility and improves the quality of our contact. Nowadays,
we can make a phone call with our friends almost anywhere, such as in the subway, the
countryside or even another country. Likewise, we can also text messages with beautiful photos
or even high-quality video clips to share the exciting moment of our life. Apart from that, a
mobile phone has also become important entertainment equipment. By mobile, users can enjoy
video games, listen to the music or even watch a movie smoothly.
To conclude, it is inarguable that mobile phones are not perfect so far, but they can
produce more valuable and beneficial influences. Thus, I am convinced that their advantages
outweigh the disadvantages.
Beside, Childrens can be victims of cyber-bullying without an adult knowing. A study
conducted in 2003 by the Center On Media and Child Health found that mobile phones use can
lead to trouble with sleep, leading to fatigue and trouble focusing during the day.
More than that, mobile phones addiction is a big social problem. Many psychiatrists
belive that mobile phones addiction is becoming one of the biggest non-drug addiction in this
century. Along with the technology of the mobile phones users and the ease of prepaid method
provide by the system operators, most teenagers now own their own mobile phones and network
service without supervision from their parents. Teenagers are engaged on their mobile phones all
the time, no matter on phones calls, using SMS text messages, personalising the mobile phones
with ringtones and pictures. Besides, many people are running after the latest mobile phones.

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New models of mobile phones are released almost every month. In oder to get up-to-date, people
tend to changes their mobile phones once in while. These became habits among the mobile
phones users causing them to spend unnecessary cost on mobile bills and costs. Thus, they are
categorized as wasting their money to fulfil their satisfaction rather than really needs. Economy
problem could arise when they spent so much on that device.
Cyber-bullying is also another issue among the disadvantages of mobile phones. Cyberbullying is a bullying act using offensive words and behavior via online chatting, emails or SMS
text messages. It was showed that the psychological effect of cyber-bullying are much severe that
face-to-face bullying. Most of them did not understand the real usage of the phone. They are
influenced by their friends badly and willing to steal others phone for the sake of following the
current trends. This is an example of unhealthy culture that lead to many social problem such as
mentioned above.
There are still many social problem raised as the effect of misuse of mobile phones. In the
aspect of technology, mobile phones with camera function are causing privacy problems. Saudi
Arabia had banned camera phones throughout the country while many countries are concern
about this problem. This is because many people have misused the private. The spreading on
computer viruses is also a problem for this new technology. Just like computer viruses, these
viruses will effect the normal usage on mobile phones your extra mooney to hand in your mobile
phones for service purpose.
In school level, one social problem as the negative impact of the mobile phones uses is
the anecdotal evidence that students are relying on their parents to solve scholl problems such as
forgetting sport clothes. As the consequences, the parent will call back to insist the teacher to
allow their children to participate in any school activities without the correct dress code. The
majority of researchershave have found that the mobile phonelead to problematic use in school.
Students also use this technology, not only to communicate with other during class time, but also
to cheat in exams. However, the use of the mobile phones to cheat is much more sophisticated
and it is harder to detect. Far beyond that, stealing of mobile phones is also a social issue in

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school which can impact on school teachers. This can put additional strain on school
administration if the theft occurs at or near school and staff are expected to investigate.
In the aspect of health, mobile phones are playing a key part in improving medical
services in third world countries and even advancing medical options in first world nations.
However, not all is good when it comes to mobile phones and health or at least thats what some
people would have you belive. There are a lot of people who think that mobile phones cause a
great number of diverse health problems. Whether this is true or not is mostly undetermined but
fears about health problems caused by cell phones still have some people worried.
Despite numerous studies that indicate that there is no conclusive link between cancer
and the use of mobile phones, there are a lot of people who continue to express fears that they
will contract some form of cancer if they are in contact with mobile phones too much. Basically
people are concerned that the radiation emitted by phone through the electromagnetic waves is
causing cancer and various types of tumours. This has been an issue thats caused a lot of
controversy so there are a lot of scientists and medical experts who have looked into it. The
world Health Organization has even taken up the cause and concluded that neither mobile phones
nor their base stations are cancer-causing. Nevertheless, there are thing that you can do reduce
your exposure to radiation [like keeping your phone away from the body and using special
hands-free devices to talk] that can reduce our risk if this is something that concerns us.

The increased risk that mobile phones pose to driving is clear-cut and widely
acknowledged. The risk of a collision was about four times greater when the driver was using the
telephone or soon after a call. Use of the telephone in hands-free mode was no less risky than
holding the telephone to the ear with one hand while talking.
When controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, cell-phone drivers may actually
exhibit greater impairments.Example, more accidents and less responsive driving behavior than
legally intoxicated drivers. In fact, many governments have banned the use of a mobile phone

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while driving due to its safety risks. The increased risk of an accident is enough of an incentive
to stop you from using a mobile phone when driving.
In conclusion, the increased risk that mobile phones pose to driving is clear-cut and
widely acknowledged.You owe it to yourself, your family, your passengers and your fellow road
users to be a safe driver. Being a safe driver means not using a mobile phone while driving.
So.lastly, I hope you can weigh the advantages and the disadvantages that I have mentioned to
help you use your mobile phone in a responsible manner.We humans created mobile phones and
it is all up to our control whether to used more carefully and properly or not and think wisely
before using anything.
Finally, one of the recent health problem that mobile phones are accused of causing is
cubital tunnel syndrome, a condition know more widely as cell phone elbow. Similar to carpal
tunnel syndrome, it is apparently caused by the frequent and repetitive use of the cell phone. It is
said that the frequent bending of your elbow to hold your mobile phones to you ear can affect a
nerve in your arm that leads to tingling sensations and reduced use of your hands. As an
alternative, reduce our frequent use of our mobile phones and star to use of our phones speaker
or a hands-free talking device and switching of our hands when talking on the phone are all ways
top combat this rising problem if indeed it realy exists. However, this health concern is still in an
early stage and many of us are still unclear about this case.
In conclusion, mobile phones it has also impacted on the evolving relationship within the
family, especially by the increased negotiating power the mobile phone gives to young people in
regard to social and medical issues. School and educational setting report that students mobile
phone use disrupts teaching and reduces students attention in the class, resulting in negative
educational outcomes.

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RECOMMENDATIONS
Track your cell phone use by keeping a journal of your time spent texting, playing games
and chatting on your phone. Through this step, we can track of how much we spent our time and
waste them on mobile phones. Unnecessary things such as gaming and listening to music should
be reduced. Enjoy your moment with people around you by turning off your phone when
engaged in face-to-face communication. Begin to understand that real relationships are not
dependent on short text messages or social networking on our smart phones.
From the problem analysed, I would suggest us to come up with a brochure to tell
our good intentions to the mobile phones users. Even though it looks less effort but I belive that
at an early stage the good brochure should be able to create their awareness about social as well
as health problem caused by the using of mobile phones. The softcopy of the brochure could be
spread through internet. Many of mobile phones users are active on social networking and well
we could use that huge opportunity to deliver information to them.
Next, we could arrange a motivation program but it requires more budgets because we
are going to gofor tour. My plan it to have few teams and each team is assigned a venue for them
to conduct the motivational talk. This program is as easy as if with have a good teamwork and
well-known talk person. Any suggestion or recommendations to this problem shall be brought up
or discussed in the meeting in coming soon.

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REFERENCES
Campbell,S.W & Park, Y.j.(2008).Social Implication of Mobile Telephony: The Rise of Personel
Communicatian Society. Sociology Compass.
Pfeffer, J. (1998). The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting First. Havard: Havard
Business School Press.
Jaya Pushani, Dr Ranjit Singh. ( 2012 ). OUM2203 English For Workplace Communication:
Open University Malaysia.