It is an unfortunate side of human nature that
we are exposed to bullying.
While most of us grow out of this phase as
children, some people remain aggressive in real life and in the virtual world.
It is also a known fact that bullying is a learned trait. Although bullying is
not permitted here a lot of it does go unreported. The reasons for not
reporting bullying may be because there is confusion, fear, shame, doubt and
ignorance regarding what happened. Some people may be unaware they are being
bullied or feel there is no recourse or assistance available to remedy their
situation. In some cases people may simply not know what to do when they run
into a bully.
Have you been bullied by someone on SL? This may
be difficult to discern if we are not sure exactly what bullying entails,
especially when it applies to the virtual world. In real life, I have run
anti-bullying workshops for school children. I found that children were not
always aware of exactly what bullying consists of. When it was explained to
them they quickly identified situations where they had indeed encountered a
bully. I am going to take a similar approach in this article and explain the
types of bullying one may experience on Second Life. The examples I present
will be taken from actual experiences from some avies on Second Life, including
my own personal run-ins with bullies. You may have had similar experiences or
you may not have run into bullying yet. I hope you can gain some knowledge on
when someone is bullying you and what to do to save yourself from this down
side to human nature. I will present a further article on what you can do
specifically to stop being bullied on Second Life. In this article I wish to
outline the types of bullying and how to identify they type of bullying you may
have experienced.
What is Bullying?
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