Name: Abdinasir Suleiman Osman

Matric No: 0833359

Title: The relationship between the usage of mobile phones and health problems among IIUM students

Research Methodology

The primary focus of this study that was conducted was to describe the ill-effects due

to the excessive use of the mobile phones. The research was completed and the survey

was conducted among the students of International Islamic University Malaysia and

wasn’t limited to any specific department. That makes my research slightly different than

previous researches from the aspect that my research concerns young people who use

mobile phones excessively. This research was conducted based on few materials

pertaining to mobile health issues by using various resources for references including

websites, articles, journals, and books. A detailed Questionnaire was developed and

aimed to investigate two effects or harms caused by mobile phones.

Participants

The participant for this survey is not limited to any specific department. A total number

of about 50 students were considered to answer this survey. This research was conducted

on the basis of quantitative approach as it is the best method to prove/disprove

hypothesis. This approach provides the fundamental connection between the empirical

observation and the mathematical expression of quantitative relationships.

Instruments

All of the questionnaires were given online. The questionnaire consisted of 2 parts

which have 12 questions. The questions were formed in different category such as yes-

no, multiple choice questions and scale. Different forms of category were used in order to

gather and obtain an appropriate data needed. The questionnaire was randomly

distributed among International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) engineering

students.

Procedures

All the questionnaires were conducted via online. The survey question was

created by using Google Docs and being shared through Facebook account since it was

the easiest way to approach the respondent. The purpose and objective of the research

were stated clearly in the survey form for respondents’ clarification. The respondents

only took less than 3 minutes to complete the survey form. The survey was conducted in

a two days due to small number of respondents needed.

Data Analysis

The results were automatically obtained from Google documents and also by

using the Microsoft excel by sketching graphs manually. To describe data, this survey

was used by bar charts, pie charts, and tables.

Data Analysis and Discussion

RESULTS:

The survey was conducted among IIUM students and a random population of 50

students was selected randomly from different departments. Among the respondents that

participated in the survey, 30% were male and 20% population were female. The first

part focused on the general information about the kulliyyah that the respondent belonged

to. Their age group and the time spent by the respondent on the average number of calls

(incoming/ outgoing) and the duration of the call (incoming/ outgoing) each day. This

part started by questioning about the department or the Kulliyah that the respondent

belonged to. Table 3 showed that 33% of the respondents belonged to kulliyah of

engineering, 33% belonged to kulliyah of Economics, 18% belonged to kulliyah of

Information and communication technology and 16% were from other kulliyah.

Table 1: percentage of the gender

The first question focuses

general background of the

respondents. For instance, their

gender group and 58% of the respondents were male while the rest of the 42% were

female.

Gender Number of respondents Percentage

Male 29 58%

Female 21 42%

Table 2: % age of respondents

% age of respondents

Less than 20

7 14%

20-25 34 69%

above 25 8 16%

The second question focused on the age group that the respondent belonged to. Table 2

showed that 69% of the respondents were between the age of 20-25, 14% were below 20

and 16% were above 25.

Table 3:kulliyah

Table 4: Level of study

Level of Study

Year of study No of respondents Percentage1 8 17%

2 6 13%

3 13 27%

4 21 44%

Table 5: average calls per day (Incoming/outgoing)

Kulliyah No. of respondentsEngineering

33%

KENMS

33%

ICT 18%

Others

16%

What is the average number of calls (incoming and outgoing) that you attend per day?average calls per day (Incoming/outgoing)

Duration of calls No of respondents Percentage

1-5 25 51%

5-10 16 33%

10-20 7 14%

more than 20 1 2%

The fifth question focused on the average number of calls (incoming/outgoing) that the

respondent attends each day. Table 5 shows that around 25 respondents attend 1-5 calls

per day, 16 respondents attend 5-10 calls per day, around approximately 7 respondents

attend 10-20 calls per day and one of the respondent’s (incoming/outgoing) exceeds

more than 20 each day.

Table 6:

What is the duration that a person spends daily on a certain call?

Duration of calls No of respondents PercentageLess than 10 minutes 2

553%

10-20 minutes 18

38%

greater than or equal to 20 minutes

4 9%

The 6th question of the survey focused on the effects of the radiation emitted by the

mobile phones. This question started by asking about the duration of the call that the

person spends daily. Table 6 showed that around 53% of people spend less than 10

minutes on a certain call, 38% of people spend an average of 10-20 minutes per day on a

certain call and only 9% of people spend an average of more than 20 minutes on a certain

call.

Table 7:

Do you feel pain after the long amount of time you spend talking on the cell phone?Yes 35 70%

No 15 30%

Table 8: type of the pain

What type of pain do you observe after you after using your mobile phone for a long period?

Type of pain No of responses PercentageHeadache 17 34%

No pain 12 24%

bad sleep & ear ache 8 16%

Dizziness 9 18%

redness on the ears & hair lose 4 8%

The type of pain is different from a respondent to another. Among the respondents the survey showed that 34% feel headache after using a mobile phone for a long period as shown below.

Table 9: different of pain caused by the mobile phones

Break d

own of blood brai

n barrier

Increase

d Risk

of eye

cancer

s

Increase

d Risk of E

ar tumors

Increase

d risk o

f other

cancer

s 05

1015202530

Number of responses

Number of responses

Do cell phones cause cancer?Break down of blood brain barrier

16

33%

Increased  Risk of eye cancers 5 8%

Increased Risk of Ear tumors 27

55%

Increased risk of other cancers 2 4%

Table 10: The excessive usages of mobile phones in IIUM

Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Number of resposes No of resposes

The excessive usages of mobile phones can cause healthy issues at IIUM students?

Strongly Dis agree 1 4%

Disagree 2 9%

Neutral 3 13%

Agree 5 22%

Strongly agree 12 52%

Most of the IIUM students’ were strongly agree that the prolonged usages of mobile

phones might cause health problems. More than 52% of the respondents were agree while

only 4% dis agreed the excessive usages of mobile phones might result on health

problems.

Table 11: the role of cell phones at IIUM students’

Strongly disagree

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Number of responses

Number of responses

Cell phones has big role on the human healthy.

Strongly Disagree 4 9%

Disagree 2 4%

Neutral 6 13%

Agree 12 22%

Strongly agree 26 52%

The last question of the survey was asked the respondents to answer a short

question which was based on the main problems of mobile phones in terms of health and

most of them were responded that the major problems that caused by the usage of the

mobile phones hair loss, ear pain, cancer if the radiation is too strong, and headache after

speaking long time.

Moreover while doing this survey, I found that most of the students here are totally

aware about the harmful radiations emitted by their mobile phones that are harmful to

their health, so keeping this fact in view the research that I conducted was found useful

by the respondents.

DISCUSSION:

This survey was conducted to investigate the possible effects of mobile phone on

human health due to the extensive use of mobile phones which causes some health effects

from the radio-frequency electromagnetic fields emitted by these phones.

It has been revealed from the survey that out of 50 respondents that I interviewed about

4% of IIUM students spend about more than minutes per day for communication purpose

through the cell phone as shown in the table( 6) which is fairly large amount of duration

for communication through mobile phones. As a result, heavy mobile phone users are

usually exposed to the electromagnetic radiation and hence are engage with the higher

probability to suffer from some pains. Comparing this research with previous ones, this

research supports the hypothesis and findings of Kumar, Ahmad & Sharma (2010) who

discovered that when a person places a hand phone 15 cm close to his/her body for more

than 15 minutes, high frequency electromagnetic waves transmitted from the mobile

phone handsets penetrate inside the body, the electric field is induced inside the skin and

blood of the body. Due to this, it becomes harmful for his/her health. Figure and table (8)

show the overall health effects of the cell phone users in the long run. The diagram

determines that among the 50 respondents, there is 34% who claimed headache, 16% bad

sleep and earache, 18% dizziness, 8% redness on the ears & hair loss and 24% claimed

no effects on health. Many respondents felt that they do not feel any kind of pain even

though they use the mobile phone for hours it is because, the effects on health do not

appear during the use of mobile phones but it is for the long run. It is sad to hear that

users know about the positive side of mobile phone and ignore the negative side. The

precaution should be set as an important subject from the beginning, before it is too late.

Some experiments done on rabbits had shown that a few second of intense exposure of

radiofrequency is enough to kill the laboratory rabbits (Kane, 2007). All these

considerations have made the cell phones users more concerned towards the risk of health

troubles by exposing their body close to mobile phones. In short, it is definitely believed

that continuous use of mobile phones can endanger the users towards the risk of getting

brain tumour in the future.

Appendix