Worlds tied together? Online and non-domestic routine activities and their impact on digital and traditional threat victimization

Abstract

The article compares risk factors between threat victimization by digital and traditional modes (e.g. email or chat room versus letter or face-to-face). Until now, empirical tests of routine activity theory have applied a segregated approach in such cases, linking computer activities to cybercrime victimization and outdoor activities to traditional victimization. However, an integrated approach suggests that social interactions between people in the physical and digital world are connected. Thus, exposure to conflict-prone situations and eventual escalation of the conflict by a threat can occur in separate domains. Routine activities online can therefore result in traditional threat victimization and, conversely, outdoor activities can result in digital threat victimization. Results from victimization survey data from a sample of the Dutch general population (N = 6896) offer support for these hypotheses. The findings suggest that routine activity theory needs to be tested in new ways in contemporary digitalized societies.