Hanging out on the streets and on the screen: longitudinal analyses of the relation between online and offline time use and online and offline delinquency

We examine whether and how short-term changes in online and offline activities – in particular unstructured socialising - relate to changes in online (cyber-dependent, cyber-enabled) and offline offending. We analyse two-wave longitudinal data from 725 Dutch students in secondary or tertiary IT-education, employing hybrid models to distinguish within-person effects from between-person differences. Overall, results indicate that within-person changes in offline unstructured socialising with friends at home are related to within-person changes in all forms of offending. For cyber-dependent crime, changes in forum use were also related to changes in offending. Surprisingly, changes in other forms of online time use (e.g. gaming, using a phone/tablet, using social media) appear to have no significant effects. However, between-person analyses reveal that online and offline activities are to some extent related to between-person differences in offending, but not always as expected, illustrating the complexity of the interplay between online and offline offending and activities.