1.

0 Guiding Theory
One of the guiding theories that can be applied in this case is the TransTheoretical Model(TTM). It is an integrative model of behaviour change that provides
a well-established, comprehensive approach to understanding intentional behaviour
change and developing effective behaviour change interventions (Fernandez et
al.,2016). Stage of change is the central organizing construct of the TTM. The
following five stages of changes are identified in TTM: (a) the pre-contemplation
stage, in which individuals are assumed to be inactive and not contemplate action
initiation, at least in the short term; (b) the contemplation stage, in which individuals
are still inactive but contemplate action initiation; (c) the preparation stage, where
behaviour is initiated but not yet practiced systematically; (d) the action stage, where
behaviour is regularly practiced for a certain period of time; and (e) the maintenance
stage, in which behaviour is enacted for more than 6 months and gradually becomes
more stable (Petrocelli, 2002; Prochaska &Velicer, 1997).
According to the diagram which stated in appendices, we learned that our
target audiences will go through the 5 stages that mentioned in order to transform the
current behaviours (refer to appendix 1). In the pre-contemplation stage, the target
audiences are mostly unaware of the possible side effects that can be caused by the
smartphones that they're using all the time. In the contemplation stage, the growth of
smartphone's usage rate for the target audiences will become lesser due to the
increased awareness of the issues and the benefits of changing the current behaviours.
In the preparation stage, people will try to seek for other means necessary to assist
them for planning the systematic change of decreasing the smartphone's usage rate in
future. Also, this kind of behaviour will make the growth of smartphone's usage rate
become static. In the action stage, the target audiences start to reduce the
smartphone's usage rate in short term. In the maintenance stage, target audiences will
reduce the smartphone's usage rate to a desired level consistently according to the
plans and assistances that accumulated at previous stages. Each stage must be
carefully handled or else it will lead to the termination stage, which the target
audiences quit the behavioural change process.

Another guiding theory that can be applied in this case is the protectionmotivation theory. According to Rogers, protection-motivation theory posits that
people's motivations or intentions to protect themselves from harm are enhanced by
four critical cognitions or perceptions, regarding the severity of the risks, vulnerability
to the risks, self-efficacy at performing the advocated risk-reducing behaviour, and the
response efficacy of the advocated behaviour (Pechmann et al., 2003). Basically, there
are 4 components and they are Severity, Vulnerability, Response effectives and
Self-efficacy. The 4 components which mentioned can help to trigger the behavioural
intentions and it is shown in appendices (refer to appendix 2). In order to make this
happen, social marketers have to make the target audiences feel that the side effects of
overusing a smartphone can be severe or even lethal, especially for the users who
always look at their phone whenever crossing the road or driving. Furthermore, social
marketers have to make the target audiences believing that they're actually vulnerable
when the side effects happen. Moreover, social marketers have to make the target
audiences think that they're capable of controlling themselves from overusing
smartphones and the methods they use is effective.
2.0 Understanding of the problem
Nowadays, consumers are often unaware of the possible side effects caused by
the smartphones (pre-contemplation). According to the news from all over the world,
smartphones have been increasing the tendency of temporary blindness to the eyes
after a long duration of exposure to the LED screen in pitch black or low light
intensity condition or environment. According Lisa Ryan, she wrote for one of the
published article of INSIDER that New England Journal of Medicine reported two
women (22 years old and 40 years old) went blind temporarily, in one eye each, while
looking at their smartphones in the dark. A team of London-based doctors concluded
that the symptoms only occurred after the women spent several minutes looking at
their smartphones in the dark while lying in bed. The 22-year-old woman would look
at her phone at night, while the 40-year-old looked at hers in the morning (Lisa,
2016).
Secondly, lets scope down to how Malaysians doctor and medical personal
listed out the side effects of smartphones. First of all, Malaysians medical team
conducted a research and collected all respective data from a total of 212 respondents.

After analyzing the data, they concluded that smartphones are radioactive and highly
radiated after a long exposure to it in a day. They concluded that the radiation of the
phone can caused headache, destroying brain cells, hearing problems, causing tumor
growth, mutation of genes, slight heat due to its radioactivity, infertility, pimples,
earache, vasodilatation of blood vessels near the ear, mental retardation especially
developing children, nausea and prostate Carcinoma (smartphones users also put their
phones on their pocket near the thigh causing its close exposure to humans private
parts. This study offers new insight into level of awareness and perception of mobile
phone hazard among University students. Thus, the paper is useful to the general
population particularly to the students as the perceived health risk did not significantly
deter students from using mobile phone. The reasons given by students for the
continued usage of mobile phone in spite of their awareness of the associated hazards
have been discussed.
Thirdly, we have been hearing the overheating of the battery and the explosion
of Samsung Note 7. Lets see some similar cases in Malaysia. Nathasha Joibi reported
in the local news, The Star, that A woman in Malaysia has died from being
electrocuted while having a conversation on a mobile phone that was plugged into a
wall socket. She is Suhana Mohamad, 30, was struck by the electrical currents at her
home in Taman Desa Baiduri, Cheras at about 11.30pm Friday (17th of April, 2016).
In another news, another phone has exploded when it was being charged, Tengku
Khalidah, who works in Utusan Malaysia, said the incident occurred at 9.30am on
Saturday while her daughter Dina was charging her smartphone at their Setiawangsa
home. She said some 30 minutes after the charger was plugged in, the smartphone
started emitting smoke and fire, even burning a pillow it was resting on. Lastly, the
recent viral news was that a woman suffers serious burns while using phone at petrol
station in Malaysia reported by M Kumar this year on Stars.
Fourthly, youngsters and young adults nowadays in Malaysia are texting while
driving. They have their concentration distracted especially there are incoming
messages or calls. They intended to pick it up and reply those messages while driving
and when they do especially on highway, some of them ended up their lives in fatal
accidents. New Strait Times reported on July 2015 that more fatal accidents involving
youth is due to them focusing to texting or taking selfies while driving. In fact, State
Road Safety Department (RTD) director Nik Ahmad Syazwan Nik Azman said based

on the department's research, numbers of fatal accident cases especially involving

youths were due to texting while driving. He said besides reading and replying to text
messages, it was also not surprising to see the young generation using their
smartphones to upload their pictures or selfie while driving. Such irresponsible
attitude towards other road users has become a driving culture among our younger
generation these days he added. Thus, as such, more road safety campaign highlighted
on the No Texting while Driving is being carried out not only to spread awareness
among motorists but also to school children in the state,. Besides, Minister Datuk
Seri Liow Tiong Lai said that the usage of mobile phones while driving has been
identified as the main cause of road accidents in the country. Malaysians are
becoming so addicted to their smartphones that they are endangering their lives as
well as everyone around them when they use it while driving. Malaysia has
notoriously earned itself as being one of the countries with the highest number of road
accidents in the world and the careless usage of mobile phones while driving may
have further compounded this undesired reputation. (Ramendran, 2016) Malaysias
government strict rules and regulation for using mobile phone while driving such as it
is illegal to hold your smartphones while driving too, that can change this behavior
and reduce those side effect and accident.
Therefore, those pedestrians who always cross the road while having their
eyes fully concentrated on the screen of their smartphones would often lead to
unnecessary accidents. There are blind spots on trucks and cars. Thus, they couldnt
get enough time to react when pedestrians came out of nowhere without checking the
road before crossing. There is compilation of videos on YouTube showing how
pedestrians was knocked down by car or even trucks when they had their eyes on the
smartphones while crossing the road. Some are lucky to survive but some died on the
spotted. It is indeed very sad to have such unfortunate things happen around us. Such
accidents can be avoided for goodnesss sake.

2.1 Challenges
When a problem has been encountered and someone has been proving it that it
is a fact from various expect but it does not mean everyone will believe it. From the
previous mentioned medical report done a team of Malaysias medical personnel,
result shows that only out of the 212 subjects who were aware of the side effects, 5%
of the males and 10% of the females felt that there was no need to minimize the
unwanted effects. This shows that some people just does not care about it. They do
not think it is necessary to do any changes to it since humans will still die one day.
First challenges, the care-less attitude of the individual, community, society or even
the country.
Secondly, silent is not a fault. This is one of the business law. Companies
would expect consumers should educate themselves about the products that they are
using. If they do not, it is not the sellers responsibilities to state it out the side effect
of a product. All the hazard faced are on the consumers account. Therefore, the
second challenge is that consumers are not educated in the proper way that it should
be. Many of them just followed blindly with the trend to spend whatever it is without
thinking the pros and cons.
Thirdly, one of the challenges is to search for the most approaches for dealing
with student disruptions involve the use of various forms of punishment such as
removals from the classroom, fines, restitution activities, in school and out-of-school
suspensions, and expulsions. Although some of these approaches may make schools
safer by removing the offending students, they have little effect on encouraging
students to perform socially appropriate behaviors. There are many reasons why
educators find punishment a more acceptable approach for managing students'
challenging behaviors than positive reinforcement (John W. Maag, 2009).
Furthermore, Positive reinforcement is pairing a positive stimulus to a behavior. A
good example of teacher that reward student if they reduce the using of mobile phone
or parent can give some reward such as bringing kids to have fun in the weekend or
some little small present. Parent should be educating children since young age to let
them know about side effect of mobile phone.

3.0 Justification of choice of target market

Social marketing is the design, implementation and control of programs
calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involve the 4Ps of product,
price, place and promotion (Jeff & Ross 2015, p.88). In social marketing, product
which is in tangible goods represent the behavioural offer made to participants and
often involves intangibles such as adoption of idea or behaviour which may influence
the users in a particular of way. For instance, mobile phone is one of the product
which may bring up some disadvantages for the users instead of advantages.
Furthermore, price relates to the costs that the buyers have to pay and the
barriers they have to overcome to adapt the desired behaviour and these costs can be
psychological, cultural, social, temporal, practical, physical and financial (Jeff & Ross
2015, p.88). The 4Ps mix also tend to put a major focus on short-term evaluation of
the effects of marketing such as sales rather than long-term concepts such as lifetime
customer satisfaction, value co-creation and brand equity (Jeff & Ross 2015, p.89).
The price for the release of new mobile phone is always expansive and it will become
cheaper when the next release of new mobile phone in the market. Buyers could not
enjoy for the new features of the new mobile phone release unless they buy for the
new phone. It is unfair for the buyer who paid for the costs and enjoy the facilities of
the entire mobile phone at that moment of time. Also, teenagers request for the latest
mobile phone from their parents which is quite expansive. It might become one of the
burden towards their parents because they need to bear for the costs.
According to the target market that based on the side effect of using mobile
phone, teenager is one of the target that we are going to focus on. The tables below
are the numbers of mobile cellular telephone subscriptions in Malaysia based on year
of 2014 and year 2015 (Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission
2015).
Based on the year of 2014, the total numbers of mobile users are 175,880
while the total numbers of mobile users are 176,472 based on the year of 2015. This
shows that there is an increase of 592 mobile users based on year 2014 and year 2015.

The destructive behaviour of Malaysians who continue to use smartphone

while driving is more prevalent today compared to five years ago. The desire to swipe
that screen to reply on WhatsApp message or reply comment on Facebook has
become a habit which cannot break away from. Especially for those teenagers who
used to chat frequently with their friends by using mobile phones. There is a high
percentage of motorists and drivers hooked on their phones the minute they get
behind the wheel while stooping at the traffic light. Most of the drivers or motorists
could also be busy browsing through Facebook manoeuvring their way through
traffic. Some have mastered on skill of typing few message to reply their friends at the
same time while driving on expressway. Such action is life endangering. Yet may
cause accident towards other victims.
Besides that, the growing addiction of using mobile phone is also killing the
family spirit as conversation are becoming fewer and shorter. There was a time I saw
many parents and children staring at their mobile phones while attending a family
gathering or while dining out. The continuous desire to look and swipe through a
handheld device is also causing more people to be oblivious to their surroundings.
Somehow I felt that addicted in using mobile phone has become a daily habit which
cannot be ignore anymore.
According to figures from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia
Commission (MCMC) and other surveys, there are at least 10 million smartphone
users in Malaysia. Although the exact number of teenagers owning smartphones is
hard to gauge, MCMC's hand phone users survey 2012 indicated that people aged 15
to 24 made up almost 29 per cent of mobile phone users in the country.
According to the hand phone users survey in 2014 from the Malaysian
Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), there are some data which
has been collected from the demographics such as sex, nationality, age category and
so on. From the table below, the survey found that male users of mobile phone exceed
female users with the makeup of 56.9% male and 43.1% female (Malaysian
Communication and Multimedia Commission 2015).
Apart from that, Malaysian account for the main users of mobile phone with
87.9% of the subscriber base. Non-Malaysians make up the rest which is 12.1%.
Population estimates of the Department of Statistics, Malaysia state that Malaysians

make up 91.3% while non-Malaysians account for 8.7% in the first quarter of 2014
according to the survey reference date as below (Malaysian Communication and
Multimedia Commission 2015).
As expected, hand phone users were dominated by the teenagers, from the age
group of 20-24 with the highest percentage of 18.8% of users. The second largest
group was 25-29 which accounted for 16.3% (Malaysian Communication and
Multimedia Commission 2015). The table below shows the percentage of phone users
by age category.
Nowadays, hand phone has become an essential role in our daily
communication. The survey shows that whether the technological revolution has
changed Malaysians hand phone behaviour. The study found that about three quarter
of users (71.4%) constantly check their hand phones even when it dies not ring. The
diagram below shows that the people check hand phone without notifications by age
category (Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission 2015).
A research shows that more than 200 million Americans play video games,
accounting for over two-thirds of the population, with around 3 percent of these
playing at a pathological level. Leftover stereotypes would have you believe that
these are largely geeky, socially-inept teenage boys, but in fact, 47 percent of
gamers are women and the most frequent game purchasers are around 35. Video
games pervade modern culture, but experts from Australia are warning about the risk
of video game addiction, pointing out that kids addicted to gaming are more likely to
develop mental illnesses.
Nowadays, gaming addicted towards the teenagers is the major cause of
mental health problem. Smartphone game addiction is a relatively new phenomenon,
but learning more about it and the associated health risks helps to understand the level
of risk from epidemic-level gaming.
Especially the Pokemon Go which is the most favourite smartphone game
recently among all the teenagers as well as the elderly. The game tasks players to
search real locations including parks, shopping malls, museums, and roads it would
seem to find the fictional pocket monsters, or Pokemon for short. People are addicted
with this game until forget about their safety.

This game has become a major cause of car accident in Australia and USA.
The incident happened is because of the car user was using their smartphone to catch
the Pokemon while driving. Such action is illegal and they are taking their risk while
driving.
Description and critique of the previous attempts at behaviour modification
Using a mobile phone while driving especially texting is far too common and
very dangerous and highly distracting. Driving is a complex activity performed in an
environment that is constantly evolving and involves the simultaneous performance of
multiple subtasks. Despite this complexity, drivers often engage in additional
activities that can take both their mind and their eyes off the road and their hands off
critical vehicle controls.
Some drivers who held their cell phone near the top of the steering wheel
while texting, are now holding the cell phone in their lap. While these drivers hide the
phone from law enforcement, they are setting themselves up for disaster. Besides, I
found that the previous campaign which is The Safe Texting Campaign's mission is to
reduce and stop distracted driving through education and technology, and confident
that their application will helps to reduce the behaviour through education and
technology, and texting while driving. uses cell tower change technology. When you
are driving the application displays a "Please Don't Text and Drive" message.
In additional, this application is providing for android, iOS, and blackberry
users. uses GPS technology to reduce distracted driving. When youre driving at
speeds above fifteen miles per hour, the application replies to inbound SMS messages,
letting the sender know you are driving and it may be a while before you respond to
their text message. Some state and local government agencies have made the use of a
cell phone while driving illegal. In some areas restrictions are directed to minors and
new license holders. Other jurisdictions have enacted laws to ban handheld use, but
allow the usage of a hands free devices. It is unclear how effective texting while
driving laws are. While the laws have the best intention, they may inadvertently
promote a very dangerous behaviour.

In my opinion, the application- Safe Texting is just aim to remind the safety
knowledge to their user although this application it could be effective but it is not
enough for drivers, because drives also need to take responsibility to themselves. The
Safe Texting campaign should do some advertisement for example, includes a 30second television advertisement, as well as radio advertisements to remind the drivers
how dangerous using mobile phone while driving. The campaign is supported with
advertising on buses and taxis. The Safe Texting is used to monitor how effectively
the message reaches the target audience, as well as any behavioural changes to mobile
phone use when driving.
In conclusion, it is wise to carry a mobile phone in case of emergency, the
advice regarding mobile phone use while driving is delay making and receiving phone
calls and text messages until you have stopped driving. Pull over safely and park your
car, and then make your mobile calls, and use voicemail and return all calls when you
reach your destination. Never read or send text messages while driving. Besides, the
campaigns can be developing best practice public education campaigns to reduce
mobile phone use while driving. Education campaigns should attempt to minimise the
perceived benefits of the behaviour, increase public disapproval for it, and highlight
the preventable risks of this unsafe driving practice.

4.0 Reference
Cell Phones and Cancer Risk. (2016). National Cancer Institute. Retrieved 1 October
2016,

from

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-

prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet#q1
Fernandez, A., Amoyal, N., Paiva, A., Prochaska, J. (2016). Medical SelfCare :Motivation for HPV Vaccination Among Young Adult Men: Validation of TTM
Decisional Balance and Self-Efficacy Constructs. American Journal of Health
Promotion, Vol. 30, No. 3.
International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Statement
on the "Guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric, magnetic and
electromagetic fields (up to 300 GHz)", 2009.
Meehan, C. (2016). Safer Roads: 23 Awesome Groups Working to End Texting and
Driving. [online] Independentmotors.net. Available at:
http://independentmotors.net/texting-and-driving/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2016].
Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission 2015, Communication and
Multimedia: Pocket book of Statistic, Malaysian Government, viewed 15 September
2016,

<http://www.mcmc.gov.my/Resources/Statistics/Communications-and-

Multimedia-Pocket-Book-of-Stati.aspx>.
Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission 2015, Statistical Brief
Number Seventeen: Hand Phone User Survey 2014, Malaysian Government, viewed
29

September

2016,

<http://www.skmm.gov.my/skmmgovmy/media/General/pdf/Hand-PhoneUser2014.pdf>.
Petrocelli. J.V. (2002). Processes and stages of change: Counseling with the
transtheoretical model of change. Journal of Counseling and Development. 80( 1).
22-36.

Pechmann. C., Zhao. G., Goldberg. M.E. & Reibling.E.T. (2003). What to Convey in
Antismoking Advertisements for Adolescents: The Use of Protection Motivation
Theory to Identify Effective Message Theme. Journal of Marketing 67(1), pp. 1-18.

SCENIHR. 2015. Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health

Risks: Potential health effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF):
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/scenihr_o_041.pdfExi
t Disclaimer, accessed August 15, 2015.

Safetextingcampaign.com. (2016). Safe Texting Campaign - Preventing texting while

driving

through

education

and

technology.

[online]

Available

at:

http://safetextingcampaign.com/ [Accessed 1 Oct. 2016].

Jeff, F & Ross, G 2015, Strategic Social Marketing, SAGE Publications, Singapore.
(textbook)

5.0 Appendices
Appendix 1: Stages of Change Model from Trans-theoretical model

source:

https://www.gettheworldmoving.com/blog/transtheoretical-model-develops-

positive-change
Appendix 2: Protection-motivation Theory

source: http://www.garysturt.free-online.co.uk/health/healat2.htm

Appendix 3
Table 1.1 Number of Mobile Cellular Telephone Subscription in year 2014
Year
2014

Qtr
1
2
3
4

Post-paid (000)
7,860
7,968
8,082
8,149

Prepaid (000)
35,388
35,892
35,761
36,780

Total (000)
43,284
43,878
43,789
44,929
175,880
Table 1.2 Number of Mobile Cellular Telephone Subscription in year 2015
Year
2015

Qtr
1
2
3
4

Post-paid (000)
8,258
8,387
8,449
8,740

Prepaid (000)
36,022
35,765
35,479
35,371

Total (000)
44,280
44,152
43,929
44,111
176,472

Table 1.3 Percentage distribution of hand phone users by sex

2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Male
55.7
58.6
55.2
56.5
57.6
Female
44.3
41.4
44.8
43.5
42.4
Table 1.4 Percentage distribution of hand phone users by nationality

Malaysian
Non-Malaysian

2009
88.5
11.5

2010
87.9
12.1

2011
89.6
10.4

2012
86.3
10.4

2013
88.1
11.9

2014
56.9
43.1

2014
87.9
12.1

Table 1.5 Percentage distribution of hand phone users by age category

Age classes

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Below 15

2.3

3.4

1.9

1.8

1.7

1.8

15-19

12.4

10.9

10.4

11.4

13.0

10.7

20-24

20.0

17.3

17.6

17.3

18.1

18.8

25-29

15.9

15.9

16.5

15.8

16.3

16.3

30-34

14.2

13.5

13.4

13.8

13.5

12.7

35-39

9.3

10.1

9.8

10.8

9.3

10.0

40-44

8.1

9.2

10.3

9.2

9.2

8.3

45-49

5.9

6.5

6.6

6.5

6.0

7.2

50 and above

11.8

13.3

13.4

5.4

4.9

4.6

Figure 1 : Check hand phone without notifications by Age Category

Questionnaire
(Circle the listed option or fill in the blanks)
Part 1: Demographics

1) Nationality
a) Malaysians
b) Non-Malaysians
2) Sex
a) Male
b) Female
3) Ethnicity
a) Malay
b) Chinese
c) Indian
d) Bumiputera Sabah/Sarawak
e) Orang Asli
f) Others
4) Age
(_____________)
5) Income
(_____________)
6) Employment Status
a) Full time student
b) Employed
c) Self-employed
d) Unemployed
e) Others
7) Types of phones operating system?
a) iOS
b) Android
c) Othes: (_____________)
8) Do you use your phone in pitch black or under low light intensity condition?
1) Yes
2) Sometimes
3) No
9) Do you text/call while driving?
a) Yes
b) Sometimes
c) No
10) Do you cross the road while looking on your screens?
a) Yes
b) Sometimes
c) No