All are welcome: Using VR ethnography to explore harassment behavior in immersive social virtual reality

Abstract

The growing ubiquity of VR headsets has given rise to questions around harassment in social virtual reality. This paper presents two studies. In the first, a pilot ethnographic study, users were interviewed in immersive social virtual reality about their experiences and behaviors in these spaces. Harassment was occasional, and those in female avatars reported more harassment than those in male avatars. In Study Two, a quantitative survey was conducted to validate ethnographic results. A large percentage of users witness harassment in virtual reality. These studies provide mixed methods insight of user demographics and behaviors in the relatively new social VR space.