The hidden harms of the Onlife: How digital life is changing what we call crime

The criminological nuances of the Onlife – our blended digital and physical existence – focus on how everyday life is increasingly shaped and steered within a hyperconnected world. Onlife is not just a phase or trend; it is a complex and holistic structure in which information and users are directed, monitored and shaped over time.

Yes, the internet has provided instant and largely unrestricted access to knowledge. But it has also enabled unprecedented access to people’s lives. The Nietzschean metaphor of the abyss looking back at us, once observed too intensively, takes a new shape: the digital abyss stares with data-hungry precision, measuring and responding to our every move.

Governments and state agencies have eagerly appropriated these digital infrastructures to enhance bureaucratic functions, policy making and border patrolling, with staggering reach and efficiency. What once seemed a chaotic and uncontrollable network of anonymous global users now presents a very different picture: increasingly ordered, surveilled, structured and socially sorted.

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