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The Internet has played an important role in youngersters’ daily life. All kinds of Chatrooms and a variety of online games, for instances, have attracted teenagers to Internet. Providing with high-quality equipment and high-end computers, Internet Café become the favored places for teenagers to get together and hang around. However, as we read from newspapers and relevant reports, many teenagers who dropped out from school often hang around at Internet Café. Some of dropouts are encouraged and seduced by peers to smoke, drink and take drugs. Others may join gansters or be recruited and commit crimes such as fraud and prostitution. It has become a social issue that we have to face and deal with. However, plaiying online games and making friends should have been the normal and healthy recreaction and social activities respectively. How come Internet Café becomes the place where teenagers make crimes? Or the deviance of teenagers occurs due to other reasons? In accordance with “differential association theory” of Edwin H. Sutherland, teengers’ deviance is learned through interaction with others who have motivies for criminal behavior. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups, peers, for instance. Internet Café is an ideal place for teenagers to learn from and be influencd by one another because they spend most of the time hanging together. However, the differential asscociation theory may not be sufficient to explain why the deviance of teengers is caused by their staying at Internet Café. According to Travis Hirschi‘s social control theory, teenagers’ attachment to parents and school is the bond to conventional society. Therefore, when the relationship between parents and child does not go well and the connection between school and student is weak, teenagers may turn to the friends they make at Internet Café to get comfort and support. This study examines the causes of teenagers’ deviance and explores the role that Internet Café plays in causing the deviance. Data analyzed in this study were collected from the research project “Project of Taiwan Youth’s Growth Process”, which was sponsored by the Academai Sinica (AS-93-TP-C01) and conducted by the Institute of Cociology, Academia Sinica and directed by Dr. Chin-Chun Yi. The subjects of this study are the data of the stage 1 phase 4 of “2002 evaulation and survey of teenagers’ healthy behavior”, randomly sampling from the senior high students in Taipei City, New Taipei City and Ilan County. Effective samples are 2,354. The data of this study is analyzed by Pearson' correlation and regression model to assay with SPSS. This study examines the influence of parents’ attachment, school attachment, deviant peers and social-economic status on teenagers’ deviance. This study also examines the influence of Internet Café. The result of this study has shown that the deviance of teenages is caused by their relationship and interaction with their parents and peers. The more peers taking drugs, the easier the deviance of teenagers occurs. Also, the relationship between parents and children and parents’ commitment have influence on the deviance of teenagers. Teenagers’ hanging around at Internet Café may not be as influential as peers, but it still plays an important role in causing deviance. The more teenagers hang around Internet Café, the more chance they learn the deviance. Therefore, regulating Internet Café properly, watching teenagers’ behavior, parenting and parents’ accompany would be critical to prevent the deviance.
Key words: Internet Café, the deviance of teenagers, Taiwan Youth Project
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