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The Indoor Environmental Quality in Cyber Cafés

Article · July 2014

DOI: 10.15764/EH.2014.02016

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 JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN
ISSN(Print): 2373-8324 ISSN(Online): 2373-8332
Volume 1, Number 2, July 2014

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN

The Indoor Environmental Quality in Cyber

Cafés
Chun-Fu Chiu1,2 , Ming-Hung Chen3 , and Feng-Hsiang Chang1 *
1 Department of Leisure, Recreation and Tourism Management, Tzu Hui Institute of Technology, Pingtung 926, Taiwan (R.O.C.).
2 Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology,
Pingtung 912, Taiwan (R.O.C.).
3 Department of Recreational Sport and Health Promotion, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 912,

Taiwan (R.O.C.).
*Corresponding author: chang.taiwan@gmail.com

Abstract:
Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is an essential factor that influences consumer behavior,
and particularly how consumers choose cyber cafés. This study investigated IEQ by using an
indoor pollution evaluation system to monitor and record the real-time temperature, relative
humidity, air velocity, illumination level, and CO2 concentrations of 3 cyber cafés in Southern
Taiwan. The average CO2 concentrations of cyber cafés A (893 ppm), B (741 ppm), and C (950
ppm) exceeded the recommended exposure limits of Type-1 indoor air quality (IAQ) standards
(600 ppm) for schools and educational institutions; however, all met the recommended exposure
limits of Type-2 IAQ standards (1000 ppm) for general public places and buildings suggested by
the Environmental Protection Administration of Taiwan. The average illumination levels of cyber
cafés A (82 Lux), B (147 Lux), and C (333 Lux) did not meet the standards of the Taiwanese
Ministry of Education for classrooms ( 500 Lux), and only cyber café C met Chinese National
Standards ( 200 Lux) for recreation rooms. The results suggested that the IEQ of the three
cyber cafés can be enhanced by improving the illumination levels and CO2 concentrations.
Keywords:
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ); Cyber Café; Indoor Air

1. INTRODUCTION

Online cafés have various names worldwide; they are also known as cyber, Internet, net, or game cafés,
PC bang, wangba, gaming centers, or mass LAN-parties [1]. Electronic Café, the first online café in South
Korea, was opened in Seoul by Ahn Sang-Su and KeumNuri in front of Hongik University in March 1988.
The opening of the online café in South Korea was 2–3 years ahead of that in other developed countries
[2]. The Executive Yuan of Taiwan classified cyber cafés as an information–recreation service industry.
On December 5, 2001, the Executive Yuan passed a statute for regulating “information-recreation service
providers” (also known as the Internet café regulation) to promote the industry and ensure public access
to legal cyber cafés. This regulation currently serves as a guideline for local governments to develop their
own cyber café regulations [3].
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 JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN

People use cyber cafés for various purposes such as communication, business, and recreation [4].
Jonsson[1] argued that game cafés function as independent public places, which indicates that for
customers, game cafés are an escape from the moral judgments and parental restrictions and control
at home. These establishments also provide young men with a local “hangout” in which to maintain,
develop, and establish relationships with friends, peers, and like-minded people through gaming. Among
urban Chinese young people, wangba or Internet cafés serve as a heterotopian third place. These young
people frequent these cafés to obtain a sense of freedom, relaxation, community, equality, and fun, which
are limited in other aspects of their lives [5].
In Indonesia, Internet café users who are highly educated, highly skilled, and have substantial previous
Internet experience tend to use Internet cafés for more “serious” purposes (e.g., conducting research,
reading online news, and seeking information) than other users do[4]. By contrast, young users mainly use
cyber cafés for recreation and communication [4]. Similarly, South Korean, Taiwanese, and Indonesian
young people favor new media as an entertainment source, spending a majority of their time playing
games, chatting, and sending e-mails [4, 6, 7].

Cilesiz [8] reported that in Turkey, the potential benefits of Internet cafés in specific social leisure
contexts include educational computer use for adolescent development. In Malaysia, all types of people
enjoy the unique, upscale, educational, and innovative environments of cyber cafés [9]. However, there is
little evidence that South Korean young people use network media for educational purposes [7].
The enthusiasm of South Korean young people for new media was so great that it became a disruptive
entertainment source, leading to excessive use, sleep deprivation, neglected homework, and decreased
time spent with friends [7]. Yang et al. [10] investigated the factors causing cyber-café addiction
among Taiwanese undergraduate students and focused on the effect of family factors on cyber-café
activity. Analytical results revealed that Internet self-efficacy, failure tolerance, and parental support have
predictive powers regarding cyber-café addiction. However, the wangba is seen asa necessary space for
existential reasons, in sharp contrast to the negativeportrayal of the wangba as a mere den of iniquity in
both official and populardiscourses [5].
Atmospherics refers to the effort to design retail environments to produce specific emotional effects
in buyers to enhance their purchase probability [11]. Technically, atmosphere is “the air surrounding
a sphere”; the term is also used colloquially to describe the quality of surroundings [11]. The main
sensory channels for atmosphere are sight (color/brightness/size/shapes), sound (volume/pitch), scent
(scent/freshness), and touch (softness/smoothness/temperature) [11, 12]. Atmospherics is likely to play a
growing role in the unending search of firms for differential advantage [11].
Because of the hedonic nature of the restaurant experience, the role of atmospherics has an increasingly
intuitive appeal for management to generate positive emotions and ensure positive behavioral intentions
[13]. Liu and Jang [14] also indicated that dining atmospherics exert substantial effects on customers’
positive emotions, negative emotions, and perceived value. Several authors have identified ambient
conditions as a factor that affects perceptions of and human responses to the environment [15–17].
Hundreds of studies of the workplace spanning many decades have indicated that lighting, temperature,
noise, music, and color can all influence employee performance and job satisfaction [18].

The retail atmosphere can be a useful tool for building customers’ word-of-mouth behaviors [19].
Retailers investing valuable physical capital resources to improve store ambience for altering consumers’
feelings can expect returns from the positive effects that enhanced atmospherics exert on purchasing
behavior [19].
Pan [20] rated five cyber cafés in Chiayi City by using a fuzzy multicriteria decision-making procedure
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 The Indoor Environmental Quality in Cyber Cafés

Table 1. Environmental description of the three cyber cafés

Cyber cafés Number of seats (no.) Interior square footage (m2 ) Interior ceiling height (m) Interior volume (m3 )
A 59 143.0 3.45 493.2
B 26 51.3 2.90 148.8
C 37 108.7 3.00 326.1

for evaluating cyber café customers to understand the main factors affecting consumer preferences. Among
15 evaluation criteria, air, sanitation, and environmental quality ranked fifth, indicating the importance
of environmental quality. Alam et al. [9] argued that cyber café owners in Melaka and Miri in Malaysia
prioritized providing customers with inexpensive Internet access in comfortable environments.
Conducting a literature review revealed that environmental quality is a crucial factor that influences
consumer behavior, particularly how consumers choose cyber cafés. On November 23, 2011, the
Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Executive Yuan formulated the Indoor Air Quality Act,
which states that the information-recreation service industry must regulate indoor air quality (IAQ) [21].
Numerous indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and IAQ studies have been conducted [22–29], but research
on cyber cafés is scant. The main purposes of this study were to obtain cyber café IEQ data as a reference
for analyzing the subsequent effects of IEQ on consumer behavior and to obtain cyber café IAQ data to
contribute background-monitoring data to the literature.

1.1 Sampling Sites

This study involved monitoring the IEQ of three cyber cafés located in Pingtung City, Chaozhou,
and Linbian Township, which are referred to as cyber cafés A, B, and C, respectively. The detailed
environmental descriptions and layout diagrams of these cyber cafés are presented in Table 1 and Figure
1.

1.2 Sampling Strategies

An indoor pollution evaluation system (Model IES-2000; Sibata Scientific Technology Ltd., Japan) was
used to monitor and record the real-time temperature, relative humidity (RH), air velocity, illumination
level, and CO2 concentrations of the three cyber cafés. In addition, the concentration of formaldehyde
(HCHO) was measured using a computer-controlled multigas continuous monitor, a Brüel&Kjær 1302
(Naerum, Denmark). Monitoring was conducted as follows: An indoor monitor was set up and one record
per minute was read per session; for indoor monitoring, four sensors were distributed in the cyber cafés
(Figure 1) and the height of the sensors was 1.2-1.5 m, which is approximate to the human breathing
zone. Automatic continuous monitoring of each cyber café was conducted for approximately 24 hours
from 8:00 AM to 8:00 AM the following day.

2. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

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 JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 1. (a) Layout diagram of cyber café A, (b) Layout diagram of cyber café B, (c) Layout diagram of cyber café
C. Location of monitoring instrument. Position of CO2 sampling sensors.

Table 2 lists the results of the IEQ monitoring in the selected cyber cafés and the reference standards,
including measurements of temperature, RH, air velocity, illumination level, and HCHO concentration.
The measured values for cyber café A were as follows: temperature, 21.9-29.6 C; RH, 46.9%-67.8%; air
velocity, 0.014-0.026 m/s; and illumination level, 34-113 Lux; the HCHO concentration was not measured.
The measured values for cyber café B were as follows: temperature, 21.5-28.1 C; RH, 51.2%-68.5%; air
velocity, 0.015-0.027 m/s; illumination level, 143-151 Lux; and HCHO concentration, 0.015-0.131 ppm.
The measured values for cyber café C were as follows: temperature, 23.8-29.7 C; RH, 50.9%-65.0%;
air velocity, 0.015-0.023 m/s; illumination level, 109-370 Lux; and HCHO concentration, 0.004-0.101
ppm. The average temperature of cyber café C (27.6 C) did not meet American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standards. The average illumination values
of cyber cafés A (82 Lux), B (147 Lux), and C (333 Lux) did not meet the standards of the Taiwanese
Ministry of Education for classrooms. Only cyber café C met Chinese National Standards. However, the
indoor air velocities in the three cyber cafés met the standards of the Indoor Environmental Institute, and
the average HCHO concentrations of cyber cafés B (0.058 ppm) and C (0.048 ppm) met the recommended
IAQ values of the EPA (that of cyber café A was not measured).
Table 3 lists the indoor CO2 concentrations of all the cyber cafés, the percentage of the measured value
greater than 1000 ppm, and the values suggested by the EPA. The average CO2 concentrations in the
cyber cafés (A, 893 ppm; B, 741 ppm; C, 950 ppm) exceeded the recommended exposure limits of the
Type-1 IAQ standards recommended by the EPA (600 ppm); however, all met the recommended exposure
limits of the EPA-suggested Type-2 IAQ standards (1000 ppm). Nevertheless, during the monitoring,
the indoor CO2 concentrations in cyber cafés A, B, and C still had 15.6%, 0.4% and 33.7% of measured
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 The Indoor Environmental Quality in Cyber Cafés

Table 2. Measurement results and reference standards for temperature, RH, air velocity, illumination level and
HCHO concentration in the study cyber cafés.
Cyber café Temperature (o C) RH (%) Air velocity (m/s) Illumination (Lux) HCHO (ppm)
mean 26.6 54.9 0.017 82 -
A SD 2.5 7.1 0.004 29 -
Max 29.6 67.8 0.026 113 -
Min 21.9 46.9 0.014 34 -
mean 26.3 57.6 0.018 147 0.058
B SD 1.4 3.4 0.002 1 0.017
Max 28.1 68.5 0.027 151 0.131
Min 21.5 51.2 0.015 143 0.015
mean 27.6 57.6 0.017 333 0.048
C SD 1.3 2.6 0.001 25 0.016
Max 29.7 65.0 0.023 370 0.101
Min 23.8 50.9 0.015 109 0.004
Reference standards 22-27a 40-70a <=0.35b >=500c ,>=200d 0.1e
SD = standard deviation; Max = maximum value; Min = minimum value; a from ASHRAE; b from the Indoor Environmental
Institute (IEI); c from the Ministry of Education, Taiwan (R.O.C) for classroom; d from the Chinese National Standards (CNS) for
recreation room; e from the recommended IAQ values of the EPA, Taiwan.

Table 3. The indoor CO2 concentrations for the three cyber cafés and the percentage of the measured value is greater
than 1000 ppm (standards suggested by the Taiwan EPA).
Cyber café Mean Minimum Maximum Percentage of greater than Suggested value of the Tai-
(ppm) (ppm) (ppm) 1000 ppm (%) wan EPA (ppm)
A 893 792 1157 15.64 Type Ia : 600
B 741 660 1127 0.38 Type IIb : 1000
C 950 805 1178 33.67
a Type I: schools/educational institutions; b Type II: general public places and buildings.

values exceeded 1000 ppm in three cyber cafés.

3. CONCLUSION

The study results suggested that the IEQ of the three cyber cafés must be improved by enhancing
illumination levels and CO2 concentrations. Although consumers might prefer the atmosphere of dim
cyber cafés, inadequate illumination negatively influences customers’ eyesight. We recommend increasing
illumination levels to more than 200 Lux; increasing illumination levels to 500 Lux or more is strongly
recommended for cyber cafés near schools for protecting the eyesight of students. In addition, high
concentrations of CO2 might be associated with inadequate ventilation rates and customers who smoke.
We strongly recommend increasing ventilation rates to improve IAQ and reduce the negative health effects
of secondhand smoke.

Future studies must explore how cyber café environments can be used as a segmentation tool. Research
has revealed that consumers of various ages react differently to the music played in retail environments
[30], but other segmentation variables must also be studied to determine what variables mediate the
effects of cyber café environments. The related influences of IEQ parameters in cyber cafés on consumer
behaviors warrant further investigation.

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4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Tzu Hui Institute of Technology Research
Program (Grant No. THIT-99003). We also thank Mr. Jhong-Yao Guan and Mr. Bo-Yu Lin, graduate
students of Institute of Architecture and Environmental Design, Shu-Te University, Taiwan (R.O.C), for
their assistance in measuring the IEQ.

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