Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 17, 2021
Decision Letter - Luigi Lavorgna, Editor

PONE-D-21-28070

User concerns regarding information sharing on social networking sites: The user’s perspective

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lee

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Luigi Lavorgna

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: I am seriously concerned about dual publication of results (e.g., DOI: 10.4018/JGIM.2021050110) and on the general structure of the manuscript, with its length and organization suggesting this is a dissertation rather than a research manuscript.

Reviewer #2: Page 3; line 46 : Please give some examples about the application of SNS to professional field. For example in medicine and in neurology there are a lot of implications (Lavorgna L, Lanzillo R, Brescia Morra V, Abbadessa G, Tedeschi G, Bonavita S. Social Media and Multiple Sclerosis in the Posttruth Age. Interact J Med Res. 2017 Sep 27;6(2):e18. doi: 10.2196/ijmr.7879. PMID: 28954717; PMCID: PMC5637067.).

PLease discuss it.

Page 5; line 88: Sharing information is important to raise awereness about different conditions. Can you underline how important is share information in different fields as in economy or medicine. IN neurology for example the Internet is the major source to obtain information about diseases and their treatments ( Moccia M, Brigo F, Tedeschi G, Bonavita S, Lavorgna L. Neurology and the Internet: a review. Neurol Sci. 2018 Jun;39(6):981-987. doi: 10.1007/s10072-018-3339-9. Epub 2018 Mar 28. PMID: 29594831.)

Page 5; line 98: SN was perceived by users to be a useful tool to support health-related coping and social interaction, and may suggest a new kind of therapeutic alliance between physicians and people with chronich deseases in medicine ( Lavorgna L, Russo A, De Stefano M, Lanzillo R, Esposito S, Moshtari F, Rullani F, Piscopo K, Buonanno D, Brescia Morra V, Gallo A, Tedeschi G, Bonavita S. Health-Related Coping and Social Interaction in People with Multiple Sclerosis Supported by a Social Network: Pilot Study With a New Methodological Approach. Interact J Med Res. 2017 Jul 14;6(2):e10. doi: 10.2196/ijmr.7402. PMID: 28710056; PMCID: PMC5533941). Please discuss about SNS are perceived by population.

Page 6; line 113: SN was perceived by users to be a useful tool to support health-related coping and social interaction, and may suggest a new kind of therapeutic alliance between physicians and people with chronich deseases in medicine ( Lavorgna L, Russo A, De Stefano M, Lanzillo R, Esposito S, Moshtari F, Rullani F, Piscopo K, Buonanno D, Brescia Morra V, Gallo A, Tedeschi G, Bonavita S. Health-Related Coping and Social Interaction in People with Multiple Sclerosis Supported by a Social Network: Pilot Study With a New Methodological Approach. Interact J Med Res. 2017 Jul 14;6(2):e10. doi: 10.2196/ijmr.7402. PMID: 28710056; PMCID: PMC5533941). Please discuss about SNS are perceived by population.

Page 50; line 936: It will be appreciate if the authors show also data for other part of the world making a comparison.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Revision 1

We very much appreciate the work of the Reviewers, which we feel has helped us to improve the paper substantially. We offer responses to their comments as follows.

1. The argument tries to be clear about how it is based on the data. We have tried to clarify the argument in places. We believe that our procedure is rigorous and sound.

2. We believe that our data and analysis are rigorous and have done what we can to check these.

3. Our data are fully available.

4. The manuscript has been substantially written, and thoroughly edited, by an experienced native speaker of English. We believe there are no major errors.

5.

Reviewer #1: The comment is correct, that there is a relationship with another published paper, as noted [full citation: Mutambik I, Almuqrin A, Liu Y, Alhossayin M, Qintash FH. Gender Differentials on Information Sharing and Privacy Concerns on Social Networking Sites. J Glob Inf Manag. 2021 29(3):236–55. DOI 10.4018/JGIM.2021050110], which is closer than was anticipated at the time of submission. We have revised the manuscript (especially on pages 14-20, 27) to make this relationship clear and avoid duplication. The two papers are based on data from the same empirical study, but the focus, analysis and discussion are different. Specifically, the present paper includes in the analysis the construct of Attitude, which we see as important to the argument concerning culture, which does not arise in the other paper. The other paper is focussed on issues of gender: since these are not a central concern in the present paper, we have removed those sections which addressed gender specifically. We feel that this makes the present paper clearer in focus and in structure, as well as a little shorter. The discussion section in the paper is relatively long, but we feel this is necessary to explain how and why our perspective diverges from that which is commonly found in the literature, taking culture into account. We propose a revision of the title of the paper to help emphasise the focus of the paper, to read:

User concerns regarding information sharing on social networking sites: The user’s perspective in the context of national culture.

Reviewer #2: We recognise the importance of the points raised by this Reviewer, and the appropriateness of the additional references suggested, which we have been very happy to include and for which we are grateful. Our focus is on the concerns of academic users sharing information – perhaps they tend to take unduly for granted the accuracy of the information, and should think carefully about how it will be perceived, but these are large issues that would demand a very thorough discussion. In the paper, we have chosen to focus particularly on privacy because this is a particularly salient concern of the users we have studied. We argue there are cultural specificities in the nature of these concerns, but there is much work still to be done in this area and we do not have data of our own from other cultures for direct comparison. We have revised the manuscript to take the Reviewer’s suggestions into account and to try to clarify the focus and limitations of our discussion (mainly pages 3, 6-7, 45).

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Luigi Lavorgna, Editor

User concerns regarding information sharing on social networking sites: The user’s perspective in the context of national culture

PONE-D-21-28070R1

,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Luigi Lavorgna

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Luigi Lavorgna, Editor

PONE-D-21-28070R1

User concerns regarding information sharing on social networking sites: The user’s perspective in the context of national culture

Dear Dr. Lee:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

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Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Luigi Lavorgna

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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