I often spend part of my leisure time playing online games such as online chess, and I can say that I experience a fair amount of verbal harassment on almost every occasion of playing. I was first exposed to verbal harassment at a very young age, when I started to play online games rather than single player games. The first online game I played was chess, on the well-known online chess platform www.chess.com. A few days within playing, I’ve received several messages from the game chat that contains offensive language. I was actually quite shocked to see what people were saying to me, because I don't see why it is necessary at all to swear over a chess game. The abusive language gave me uneasy feelings, but they often fade away quickly. After a while of becoming part of the online community, I have soon realized that verbal harassment was very common. As I was more used to being exposed to this type of harassment, the amount of tolerance I have for it has also built up. By now, I am only slightly bothered by the abusive language seen on the game chat.
Personally, I dont have the habit of verbally harassing others whether in the real world or on the online platform. When I am the victim of online verbal harassment, I never reply with abusive language but rather try to reply in a wise and intelligent manner. For example, once I received a racist message during a chess game that I was winning, which read “Go make me some fried rice you chink”, and I responded with “No, I am too busy beating you in this chess game.” Similar to why I try to avoid verbally harassing others in the real world, I believe that insulting others over an online platform does not accomplish anything but generating hatred and ruining the atmosphere of the environment. And in my opinion, using abusive language is simply an act that only hurts others without benefiting one’s self. Therefore, I never participate in any type of verbal harassment, not even when I am the victim of one. I have not verbally harassed anyone in an online gaming platform, and I cannot exactly relate myself to ones who do. I don’t have any experience in being the aggressor; however I am able to draw some conclusions from certain situations I’ve been through. I’ve noticed that verbal harassment is commonly a result of an unsatisfied player, or in other words, the player who is losing. I assume that the reason for them to verbally harass is to express their rage from losing at the given moment. Perhaps harassing others through abusive language can relieve themselves from losing the game, which is my best guess. Although, I’m sure that there is some sort of psychological theory out there that could explain this behavior. In general, I believe that the act of verbally harassing others is morally wrong. I believe that it is not an intelligent decision to make, and as mentioned above, I never participate in it myself. For that reason, I would not accept a behavior like such in the real world. If I was ever verbally harassed in a face to face conversation, I would probably treat it very, very seriously. Again, I believe that verbal harassment is a sign of aggression and hostility. If this were to take place in the real world, I would view it as a serious threat and a risk to my well-being. It would be very difficult for me to tolerate it to any extent, and the fact that it occurs in the middle of a chess game would not change the way I perceive it. Unlike how I tolerate verbal harassment online, I would not accept this type of behavior in the real world at all. Verbal harassment has become a very wild theme in online gaming platforms, and in my opinion it has reached an extent where it should be addressed to the public. I feel that students make up the most part of the participants and victims of online harassment, so they should definitely be more aware of this issue. The most convenient method to address the issue to the students would be through schooling, and this can take on many forms. For example, even a short class discussion can be very effective at raising the student’s awareness of this issue. I feel that schools should take the initiative to guide students through this problem, and make sure that everyone understands what verbal harassment is all about. It could be difficult for students to analyze verbal harassment on their own, so it would be nice if schools can address this issue in some way. I believe that this could potentially improve the online society as a whole, and at the same time it is a wonderful learning opportunity for the students.
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