Hanging out in Hyperspace: Risky places Redefined
COVID-19 highlighted two critical elements of human nature. People need human contact and routine behaviors evolve. Associations with others shape our lives, influencing our ideas, attitudes, activities, and opportunities. The physical restrictions of the global pandemic accelerated existing social trends, moving daily activities into the cyber domain. Interactions with others online or in person enriches our lives, but these networks can also expose people to crime. The social fabric of a community is made up of a dynamic pattern of local connections between people. This social fabric is not static or regular, rather it generates distinctive pockets of connectivity. In this way, people’s lives are different and their opportunities to engage in crime vary significantly. The social fabric is anchored by activity nodes that act as convergence locations, hubs of social interaction that facilitate crime opportunities. The current seminar proposes that given much of our routine behavior occurs online, our concept of risky places should expand to hyperspace—sites where people hangout in cyber environments and where the digital domain crosses over into physical space. Using network analytics we can capture how people hang out in hyperspace, mapping out networks of direct contacts through which people access information and situations that expose them to crime.