✦Upcoming✦ 06 JUL 2026 (MON) 10:00-11:30
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Departmental Research Seminars Series
Growing Up Online: Gender, Digitalization, and Youth Risk and Victimization
Date: 06 JUL 2026 (Monday)
Time: 10:00-11:30 (HKT)
Venue: Chamber, Faculty of Social Sciences, 11/F, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Registration link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=108403
Abstract:
Young people's lives are increasingly shaped by digital technologies. Social media, online gaming, messaging applications, and image-sharing platforms have transformed how adolescents socialize, form relationships, experience victimization, and engage in risk behaviors. At the same time, many criminological theories were developed before the rise of digital communication and were largely based on male patterns of offending. This raises important questions about whether traditional explanations of youth deviance remain adequate in the digital age and whether they capture the experiences of both boys and girls equally.
Using large-scale youth survey data (N = 7,816) from Denmark, this study explores gender differences in online and offline deviance, including image-based sexual abuse, substance use, and other forms of risk behavior. Particular attention is paid to the roles of parental supervision, peer influence, screen use, and mental wellbeing, as risk and protective factors.
The findings suggest both continuity and change. While traditional criminological mechanisms, such as parental control and peer influence, remain important, digital environments introduce new pathways to risk that appear especially relevant for girls. For instance, parental online monitoring and screen use time emerge as risk factors uniquely associated with girls' deviance.
The presentation concludes by discussing future directions for research on youth, gender, and digitalization, and highlights the value of international comparative research for understanding contemporary forms of deviance and victimization among young people.
Dr. Yunran Zhang
Postdoctoral Researcher in Criminology, Department of Society and Politics, Aalborg University, Denmark
Dr. Serena Yunran Zhang is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Criminology at the Department of Society and Politics, Aalborg University, Denmark. Before joining Aalborg University, she completed her PhD in Sociology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on youth deviance and victimization, substances use, gender differences in offending, and comparative criminology. She currently works on projects examining online and offline risk behaviors among Danish young people.
