Rethinking youth cyber delinquency in the era of persuasive technologies

• In Event: Youth pathways into cybercrime: Results from the South Australia Digital Youth Project

Abstract

This paper challenges current ways of understanding youth participation in cybercrime. It looks at the role of persuasive technologies (algorithms, gaming sites, data architecture etc) in the lives of young people and suggests that criminologists have so far failed to take account of the role of these technologies in not just facilitating various kinds of cybercrime, but also in precipitating cybercrime. The paper seeks to develop in a more socio-technical way the notion of digital drift (Goldsmith and Brewer 2015). This notion, drawn partly on the work of Matza, proposed that the settings for youth engagement online have real, experiential impacts on young people’s decisions to deviate and commit crime. Some of the mechanisms that promote drift online are identical to, and integral to, more legitimate online practices such as gaming and web browsing. Data on the extent and form of online youth presence is needed in order to expand our understanding. The Australian Digital Youth Study has begun this process, exploring a range of foreground as well as background factors that influence what adolescents do online. This will be briefly discussed.

Authors

• Andrew John Goldsmith, Flinders University

• Thomas Holt, Michigan State University

• Russell Brewer, University of Adelaide

• Jesse Cale, University of New South Wales