【明報專訊】Behavior can be said to be ''deviant'' if it contradicts social norms or impacts the rules of a society or a certain group. From a psychological point of view, some people are more likely to break rules than others. They include those who experienced frustrations in their childhoods and who were miseducated by their parents.

Part-time boyfriends/girlfriends

Some young people ''offer themselves for hire'' on social network platforms or advertise themselves as ''part-time boyfriends/girlfriends''. Prostitution is involved in some of these cases. A social worker with the Hong Kong Playground Association said in April 2018 that the label of ''part-time boyfriends/girlfriends'' was used to whitewash the fact that they offered sex for money. Some of the young people she knew became ''part-time lovers'' out of boredom or frustration with their narrow social circles.

Young drug users on the rise

In its quarterly meeting in June 2019, the Action Committee Against Narcotics (ACAN) said that in the first quarter of the year 2019, the number of drug users reported fell by 17 percent from the same period in the previous year, but the number for people under the age of 21 rose by 15 percent. Furthermore, it was found that marijuana(大麻)was the most-often-used drug among young people, whose users rose from 38 the same period in the previous year to 67. Dr Ben Cheung Kin-leung of the committee said that marijuana is addictive. It can seriously impair one's mental health and heighten the risk of respiratory tract and cardiocirculatory diseases.

Illegal to sell alcohol to underage youths

In a survey of 1019 people conducted by the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society between October and November 2018, 96 percent of respondents said they had tried alcohol before, and 69 percent said that they started consuming alcohol under twenty. 40 percent of respondents believed that the earlier one started drinking to increase their tolerance to alcohol, the higher their ability to get accustomed to alcohol. They also believe that that would lower the risk of cancer. Dr Liu King Yin said this is a fallacy, as the risk of cancer increases with the number of one's alcoholic years. The Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office of the Department of Health began to enforce the Dutiable Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance 2018 on 30th November 2018. Anyone who sells alcohol to people under the age of eighteen is liable to $50,000 in fines.

A new law in Australia to tackle violence

In March 2019 a gunman launched a terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, broadcasting his killing spree on facebook at the same time. Over the course of 24 hours, the footage was uploaded 1.5 million times. In the aftermath leaders of a number of countries called on social media companies to shoulder more responsibilities for combating extremist content on their platforms. In April the Australian Parliament passed a new law demanding that social network websites remove repulsive, violent information including that about terrorist attacks, murder, physical abuse, rape and kidnapping swiftly and notifiy the police immediately.

Translated by Terence Yip

[通通識 第600期]