Monday 3 August 2009

Life without handphones


Kampus Sejahtera gets roped in for many things, many of which I have no resource to follow up - so, I say no.

This one, I think I can't squirm my way out. My wife told me yesterday that I used only about RM4-RM5 worth of calls on my mobile but pay RM30 per month for the service. "Happily" my children now get to enjoy my unused credits because "we are family". Should we be happy? Probably not, since it means my children will be getting more radiation from the handphones. Well, actually, they are not using more but we will be paying less because of the package. But that's not the point of this post. The point is : do you know enough about the hazards of handphone usage? And what should you or can you do about it?

Now, think, can you imagine not being about to get a good reception for your handphone while on campus. I can remember the good old days when these strange people will be walking aimlessly around the room, pointing their "remote-control" (handphone lah) in various directions trying to catch the signal. "Try near the window", someone will helpfully advise. Well, those days could be back soon on campus.

I can tell you that the decision has been made to eventually phase out the telco towers on campus. Is the decision final? Can you still influence and reverse that decision? Do you know enough to support or oppose the decision?

I have asked a few students, and almost all say its a stupid idea (to shutdown the telco towers). My three children (and I think wife) share similar sentiments. Others however think that if there are viable alternatives, like superfast WIFI and landlines, they can live without the handphones.

So, what's the problem with the handphones? Radiation coming directly from your handset when you are talking on the phone - right into your brain. Any proof? Well, I have asked my son to do some detective work (he's studying to be a telco engineer; maybe). Also, there's talk about lowering sperm count. If you have some concrete proof, send them to me.

In the meantime, we will see how we can help everyone better understand the risks. If you have a view, post a comment. Or send email to vc@usm.my.

Take Poll - tell us what you think with one click.

For latest update, read Warm Reception.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

what if in case of emergency? let say kematian la kat kampung(bg mereke yang tinggl lua kelantan or juh dr usm)....somebody want to reach you and the only way to connect 2 u r by h/phone.. susah tuh....

XtasyM said...

Hp is using radio waves, mayb a bit of high frequency side... but when all eyes are on hp radiation, we seems to forget about other sources... wat about wifi radio wave radiation? wat about bluetooth radio wave?

Anonymous said...

use bluetooth headset, then the wave wont go through your brain anymore. Futhermore ym also has call function. (lol my english is too bad, band 2 in muet!)

Michael Peter Foo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael Peter Foo said...

Looks like this entry got heated up abit, known figthing with unknown individuals. for anonymous, for emergency cases, last time without cellphone, people call the workplace or university(school) and they will try to contact you by leaving a note in your hostel room presuming you will go back daily or call your house at the evening if you are renting one. For the last entry, ya you are right, it won't go to your brain but where you place your phone? near your private part (trouser's pocket)? Make sense?

Anonymous said...

I hereby apologize if this post offended anyone , it is just my personal opinion .
If we want to contact people we had to called the school and leaving him or her notes in hostel room then what is the use of technology ? Furthermore , the message may be convey differently by the staff that received it or the notes might get lost in the process .
We are living in the 21st century , where computers and cellphones had become an important part of our lifestyle . What you are suggesting is just like using the snail mail . It is just not practical . We should advance along with time and technology and not going backward to live the lifestyle of a cavemen .

Michael Peter Foo said...

thanks anonymous, I would respect a man/woman who stood up on his/her name on his/her view. By the way, it was just an example, thanks for letting me know that you are aware of new technologies, my opinion is that before you cut people off their cell line, upgrade the internet accessibility , VoIP is easily replacing the role of cell phone.

ProgrammerWifeDaughterSister said...

make this blog more exciting and inviting....

change it to green rather than black~~~ :)

FeryFarah@IPPT,USM

malaysiancampus said...

visit http://malaysiancampus.blogspot.com/

AlbertWu said...

There is always some rationality behind every single decision make at our "APEX" University, but when someone make a decision which could alter everyone's life, there should be a contingency plan to allow everyone involved to continue living as normal or better. But I dun see no contingency plan leh, and my USM wireless still Hisap!

Anyway, taking down the telco tower might be a way to create a healthier student or campus. How about smoking? i think we should also bane smoking as well. Try to play the equilibrium game of defining which is more harmful and i can tell u that Smoking can "smoke" telco radiation A$$ anytime of the day.

So is this the type of thinking that an APEX University should had? Lets just hope that someone dosen't talk on the phone while smoking.

Anonymous said...

first, the universiti should improve the wireless service and use super fast wifi in campus and hostels.
secondly, usm should get some party to provide cheaper VoIP for students. May be student package like DiGi Campus etc...

and then can ban handphone usage and consider more to VoIP. this could create a healthy campus but some study need to be done on d radiation created by wifi....

Lipasfly MoonCraft said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lipasfly MoonCraft said...

emm..macam zaman paleolitik plak..tapi ok per takde phone, aku pernah 2 bulan tak pakai hp, ok jer...maybe bagi yang couple jauh tue, jiwa kacau ler..nampaknye...hehehehe..
tue blum yang ade bini yang keje jauh, tertunggak ler bil air...

SiouWoon Ong said...

This is my personal opinion only. Those who are reading may totally disagree with me. who knows...

Speaking of which, handphone's electro-magnetic wave is harmful. Well,the fact is that this wave is so minimal when to compared with x-rays and others. At the same time, if you were to compared to others with less impact, of course this electro-magnetic wave should be eliminated.

My point is, even if u "eliminate" the electro-magnetic wave from telco services in the campus only, the hazard is still around. I believe most students owned a computer, and majority are using laptops. FYI, laptops emits similar and even greater amount of electro-magnetic wave compared to telco devices. Besides, how long plus how frequent one person use telco devices compared to laptops? So, when that happens to be true, that laptops are harmful and hazardous, are you going to eliminate laptops/computers as well?

This may just be the immediate remedy to the waves, etc. But this will not help a single bit. Waves travels through any kind of medium. It may be less if it travels through solid, but the point is, its everywhere......

Abe said...

Quoted:
FYI, laptops emits similar and even greater amount of electro-magnetic wave compared to telco devices. Besides, how long plus how frequent one person use telco devices compared to laptops?

Dear siouwoon,
Am interested in what you wrote.. might be true about the above statement. Can we find out more about it? any sources?

Anyway, life without phone actually dont bother me much. there is nthing wront too using them..is a bout how we use them..abusing?

abe

Anonymous said...

Are those people that banding the usage of handphone are undergraduat student or professor ? Why their opinion seen so stupid and sound like no brain. Why all of them just know to band something they feel dangerous to them.Why these people will not thing that, how to improve the handphone so that,the handphone will no longer have any radiation.
Are those people who suggest these idea really becasue of what they said or they just want to be famous? Why don't they said that we should not eat any food nopwadays except organic food becasue all of the food nowsaday is full of pesticite or chemical and will cause cancer.

totoya said...

molek

Anonymous said...

good idea on reducing the handphone usage ard the campus.
but, there are a few things we need to ponder upon,
do we have enough alternative technology structure to replace the cellular tech? i.e. voip, etc? (as far as i know, everything move like a snail here, wifi, wimax & whatever wireless platform we have in Malaysia)
Do we have enough scientific proof & evidence on the risk of cellular to our body? and is it viable to just delete cellular from our life when others hazard still present within our environment. i.e. electromagnetic hazard, occupational noise etc
but if the move of reducing the aforementioned, i raise my case! :)
cheers!

Anonymous said...

It's either WiFi or cellphone -.-

Chee Hui said...

I'm not stating my stand here...since I made mine in the poll.

Here's some info I found online from American Cancer Society.

Cellular phone tower and the hazard:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3X_Cellular_Phone_Towers.asp

Cellular phone and its hazard:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3X_Cellular_Phones.asp

benson said...

is a bit late to reply this post, however i would like to justify my stand.

handphone today is definitely more than just a phone. It is also an organizer, clock, camera, dictionary, recorder, alarm, note pad, reminder, radio, mp3, video, mobile tv, entertainment, news update source, internet access. And more than you can imagine if you own an iPhone 3Gs. I WILL still carry a handphone for all its functions even if it is unable to receive and make calls.
Inevitably the radiation is there, but to ask everyone, do u WILLING or not to sacrifice a little bit of your health for so much convenience in such mobility. It will not be a surprise to see people answer yes without hesitation or spending even just a second to think about it. Yes, we are all APEX student. We apply one of the 7 principle of APEX uni – sacrifice.
There are many things that we sacrificed in this teach-advanced world. Do ppl still cycling to a far far away land? Same thing for the car is releasing global warming gases. Yet i did not see much lecturer walking, cycling, or even carpooling when they want to travel over a distance.
Can everyone in the campus bear with no air con? Air con contribute most in ozone depletion. We all know this since primary school. Should we turn to fan? Speaking about fan, do you know fan release lots of radiation as well? So probably the best solution is back to manual fan. Paper and hand.
Is handphone radiation reducing our life more significantly than smoking? Or AIDS has its remedy now that we don’t have to fear of it anymore? much much more things can be done and should be done to have a better environment. So why does depriving our love and convenience cheer you?
Is handphone the hazard most thing in our life? Is taking away our phone really helps? So outside the campus we will never use handphone anymore and no more radiation in our life? NO! By force, ppl can live without handphone, however they will only complain, complains and more complains. Forcing ppl not to use h/p in uni, 4 years, and after that? Instead of removing the tower, wouldn’t education be a better action to be taken in a long run? Reduce the use of handphone, switch off handphone when sleeping, keep distance with handphone when charging, hazards of using handphone. If all these education could be made, all these could be taken as habits, the benefit would be much much better.

b said...

is a bit late to reply this post, however i would like to justify my stand.

handphone today is definitely more than just a phone. It is also an organizer, clock, camera, dictionary, recorder, alarm, note pad, reminder, radio, mp3, video, mobile tv, entertainment, news update source, internet access. And more than you can imagine if you own an iPhone 3Gs. I WILL still carry a handphone for all its functions even if it is unable to receive and make calls.

Inevitably the radiation is there, but to ask everyone, do u WILLING or not to sacrifice a little bit of your health for so much convenience in such mobility. It will not be a surprise to see people answer yes without hesitation or spending even just a second to think about it. Yes, we are all APEX student. We apply one of the 7 principle of APEX uni – sacrifice.

There are many things that we sacrificed in this teach-advanced world. Do ppl still cycling to a far far away land? Same thing for the car is releasing global warming gases. Yet i did not see much lecturer walking, cycling, or even carpooling when they want to travel over a distance.

Can everyone in the campus bear with no air con? Air con contribute most in ozone depletion. We all know this since primary school. Should we turn to fan? Speaking about fan, do you know fan release lots of radiation as well? So probably the best solution is back to manual fan. Paper and hand.

Is handphone radiation reducing our life more significantly than smoking? Or AIDS has its remedy now that we don’t have to fear of it anymore? much much more things can be done and should be done to have a better environment. So why does depriving our love and convenience cheer you?

Is handphone the hazard most thing in our life? Is taking away our phone really helps? So outside the campus we will never use handphone anymore and no more radiation in our life? NO! By force, ppl can live without handphone, however they will only complain, complains and more complains. Forcing ppl not to use h/p in uni, 4 years, and after that? Instead of removing the tower, wouldn’t education be a better action to be taken in a long run? Reduce the use of handphone, switch off handphone when sleeping, keep distance with handphone when charging, hazards of using handphone. If all these education could be made, all these could be taken as habits, the benefit would be much much better.

Ismail bin Omar said...

It's beyond words how some so-called intelectuals can be so smart.No handphones?Why not? We could use drum rolls or smoke signals to send messages,like our grea-great-great grandparents used to do a long,long,long time ago.Great idea.

Anonymous said...

what a stupid suggestion to ban handphone in university. Even it was approved in admin to ban in unversity, please provide some alternatives. As we know our internet line so slow like snail so to provide voip application that will cost much. We don't want like to ban polystyrene and as alternative use paper and it cost a fortune as we see in tapak konvo all food stuff sell so expensive because use of paper plate. We student not rich people...

Anonymous said...

ridiculous suggestion, sorry to say. i wish universities in the peninsular would try to at least grasp the idea that there ARE students from borneo. at least TRY to understand that handphones are the ONLY reliable means of communication for us. considering the crap USM hotspot, going to the cybercafe every other day is extremely inconvenient.

about the suggestion of passing on messages to the students, it's just ridiculous. wouldn't that involve excessive paper use? whatever happened to "towards a sustainable future" or whatever it was.. the only thing i can say is that i really hope this "idea" will be reconsidered. like, reject it. we lead, right? so what exactly are we leading? leading others back into the dark ages??? *sigh*

[p/s: my most sincere apologies for the uncensored language. this topic tends to do that]

Frankie said...

I'm doesn't agree with the idea of shutting down the telco tower. As tech change our life, HP is becoming a indispensable item in everyone's life. You might say, it's ok forgot to bring ur watch or laptop when you're out, but imagine when you've forgot your handphone. Try a week without handphone during a working week. It's not a totally hell like situation, but it's getting there.

You might live, but you'll need a super-fast, campus-wide, VoIP enabled wifi coverage to replace the functionality of hp with whatever gadgets you could afford.

It's a good idea, but the reality has it's toll.

9W2LSD said...

may i suggest... move to Amateur Radio.. its only RM25 per year...

Anonymous said...

Is up to u pocket money, once u are rich, u are accordingly follow the staylo of other people, but for poor people, they don't mind to use public phone as medium comm.

Bowie said...

Talking about hazards from mobile phone, if you did enough research regarding the radiation from mobile phones, you should know that scientist failed to prove whether the radiation/heat is hazardous to human, and they said the research will be carrying on, and they doubt that it will cause zero effect to human.

Unisains said...

Bukankah baru-baru ini penyelidik USM ada temui bahan elak kanser telefon bimbit. Kenapa tak gunakan.

Di kesempatan ini saya juga ingin bertanya oleh kerana USM dah cipta plastik mesra alam USM (Plastik USM). Bila kita boleh guna balik plastik?

darrel said...

it's a really kind initiatif to ban something that harms us. But from my point of view, it really is not practical. i totally agree with benson from the previous comments.

ban plastic? ok to me. easy to replace.
reduce hp usage? can be done. But then it'll just drag us back to the 60's. LOL. Seriously. Have some thought bout it. There're always things to be changed. But we should also consider the practicality of the time. Is there another substitute for that?

By the way, i really hope the author can change the layout of blog. The colour is killing me. Reading all these comments on this page with colours hurts my eye because it's really hard to read. I prefer black and white still.

Before we think of something that big or "revolutionary", shouldn't we neglect these small care that involves people around us, such as readers of the blog first?
Seriously, step one towards helping others? change the layout. It's hurting people's eyes

anonymous said...

true. combination of gray and black hurts my eyes.lol
yea it's me

Faisal Admar said...

banning handphone is not a good idea. handphone is the best invention by human ever.

it's handy.

Anonymous said...

It's a bad decision for the University to dismantle the telco tower...even VC use handphone right. Even the HEP staff use handphone so why do they have to dismantle the telco tower. What is the reason behind the decision not to renew the license? Had they gave up already???

ekun said...

Way to go USM in taking a stupid effort to create a helthier lifestyle for the student!!

Its going to be another laughing stock the Apex University want the other university to know!

I can start predicting UM, UKM, UPM etc r starting to laugh at us USM...

one word..'FOOL' for those who think its a wise step to stop/reduce/eliminate the use of HP..

hunny said...

banding hp..i think it doesnt help..i also read a study that cannot say radiation are harm to us..yeah, about another wave..is it harmless to us? for staff maybe they are ok to not use the hp as they are in the office, people can still contact them thru office phone..how about student? when they at school? library? room?should people call the school or desa office? then what if emergency outside office hour? is there any ghost to answer the phone and then look for you in the room? it would say it is not practical..education is the best way

Anonymous said...

maybe i can understand the reason why our campus take this kind of decision. i think it can be on one way to make our campus to be 'very healthy', no radiation or else can make this world polluted.

but i wonder, what about our wi-fi system? I think the influence of radiation from handphone and wifi, almost the same.

is there any plan to stop the wifi service??
i hope not so...