Fight Against Smoking In Singapore

The topic I have chosen is the issue of smoking in Singapore – a significant issue which is detrimental to not only public health, but also affects several different groups of people. We cannot underestimate the severity of the issue as continuous governmental efforts have been implemented to curb this problem.

There are four possible causes contributing to the smoking problem in Singapore. Smoking, particularly among the younger generation can be caused by peer pressure (Health Pomotion Board, 2018). This is because the younger generation tend to view peer acceptance as important and try to “fit in” to “look cool” by smoking. Stress is another factor causing people to smoke because it satisfies their nicotine addiction and reduces stress – though if I might add, only for a short period of time (“Think Smoking Relieves Stress? Think Again!”, 2018). The easy availability of cigarettes has also perpetuated the smoking problem. In the Talking Point programme by Mediacorp, it has been revealed that it is indeed easy for underage individuals to access cigarettes – be it through their friends and family, indifferent shop owners or even strangers (Paulo & Peh, 2017). Therefore, smoking occurs when the abovementioned causes are in play.

Smokers will suffer as they experience higher risks of heart and lung diseases. Smoking ranks second in causing diseases in Singaporeans, leading to about 2,073 deaths in 2016 (Choo, 2018). The impacts are extensive and does not only affect the smokers themselves. Employers are also affected when their employees go on frequent smoke breaks, as it leads to a loss in productivity. Smoking costs due to loss in productivity as well as direct healthcare costs has amounted to at least $600million per year (Choo, 2018). Moreover, second-hand smoke negatively affects the people around them, such as their friends, family, and even passers-by. Cigarette distributors also have a stake in this issue as their tobacco retail license will be revoked if they are caught flouting the laws regarding its distribution. The government is affected as well, since smoking is detrimental to public health. A governmental response to this problem is the smoking ban imposed on Orchard Road at the start of 2019, which disallowed smokers from puffing unless they are doing so in the designated smoking areas (DSAs) (Ang, 2019).

As a Sociology major, the issue of smoking is related to my discipline as we cannot solve the problem by only tackling its symptoms without understanding how society contributed to this issue. A crucial sociological concept is C. Wright. Mills’ “The Sociological Imagination”, which refers to ‘the awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society” (Mills, 1959). This concept explains how seemingly personal issues – such as smoking – can be explained with impersonal and societal factors.

I think the problem can be addressed by computational thinking. Even though stress is a non-computational factor, we can convert it to a computational factor. Since stress is a cause of the problem, we could analyse stress levels using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and work towards reducing to reduce it.

Building on the recent smoking ban in Orchard Road by the government, we can compute more areas to impose the ban – by considering computational factors such as Human traffic Flow, popular smoking spots, and population demographics in different areas (since the elderly and young are the most vulnerable to second-hand smoke).

Employers can possible utilise computational thinking to schedule working shifts based on whether the employee smokes. Different permutations and combinations of employees who smoke and do not smoke would affect the company’s overall productivity.

However, a potential challenge that we may face is the difficulty in measuring “smoking”. To overcome this, we would have to use a standardised computational factor as an indicator of success.

In conclusion, I believe that the problem of smoking in Singapore can likely be addressed by computational thinking despite some potential challenges. This is because by converting seemingly non-computational factors into computational factors, we are able to look at connected groups of people involved in the issue and address them.