Shannon Cheung, MSW
Digital well-being and community health researcher
Gender-Based Toxicity in Online Gaming Communities
An ongoing independent mixed methods study that utilizes text scraping, natural language processing, and qualitative methods to explore perceptions and experiences of gender-based abuse and harassment in online gaming.
This study has a projected completion date of August 2026.
Overview
Problem
Female gamers have reported experiences of verbal abuse and harassment on the basis of their identity.
Current in-game systems of reporting and discipline are generally perceives as ineffective.
Questions
How do people perceive and experience in-game abuse and harassment?
How do they relate in-game experiences to offline ("real life") experiences of abuse and harassment?
Methods
I analyzed social media data using topic modeling to identify how the gaming communities generally discuss gender-based abuse and harassment.
The topics generated are being used to guide interviews with 30 women who have experienced abuse and harassment while gaming.
Results
This is an ongoing project!
This section will be updated with a summary of the results in summer 2026.