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.
