Online Bullying is a Scourge; Fortnite and Call of Duty Lead the Way
The Anti-Defamation League has published a report on the bullying that young gamers experience online. The phenomenon affects at least 62% of minors in this community.
- The Anti-Defamation League has released a report on toxic behavior in online games;
- At least 62% of young players have experienced some form of bullying;
- Individual titles can "boast" much higher results.
The phenomenon of bullying in online games is something that probably every gamer has encountered. However, not everyone has been personally affected by it. The Anti-Defamation League of America decided to find out how many underage players have experienced this type of toxic behavior and which titles were most conducive to it.
In the published report we can read that the authors examined seventeen popular online games. Then, players aged 13 to 17 were asked about their experiences with toxic behavior on the servers. It turns out that at least 62% of them at least once experienced various types of harassment.
This result was noted after surveying selected players of Rocket League. Other titles, however, can "boast" a higher percentage. In World of Warcraft, 75% of young users encountered toxic behavior. In Apex Legends it was already 77%, in PUBG 80%, in Fortnite 81%, and in Call of Duty 85%. The most unfriendly environment turned out to be Valorant. As many as 89% of young players admitted that they were harassed in Riot Games' title.
Survey respondents were also asked about the form of toxic behavior they encountered. The vast majority of bullying methods involved gameplay itself (43%), voice communication during a match (39%), and communication via chat that also took place during gameplay (37%). However, some players indicated that they experienced hostility even outside of the match, and through third-party communication apps.
The authors of the report also asked the surveyed about which games they decided to take a break from or abandoned completely. By far the largest number of young players made such decisions in the case of games from the Call of Duty series and PUBG (40%). Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Valorant (33%), and World of Warcraft (29%) also reported large figures. At the bottom of the ranking was Minecraft (21%).
The document published by the Anti-Defamation League clearly indicates that bullying in online games is a common problem of many popular titles. The authors of the report also made recommendations of actions that should be taken to deal with the harmful phenomenon. Their list, however, is long and difficult to implement without the unanimous cooperation of many civil entities and game developers themselves. Therefore, the results indicated above are unlikely to change in the near future.
