Empathy and redemption: Exploring the narrative transformation of online support for mental health across communities before and after Covid-19

Yuxuan Cai; Ertong Wei; Xintong Cai

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0307042

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 11, 2024
23 May 2024 Decision Letter - Rogis Baker, Editor PONE-D-24-14649Empathy and Redemption: Exploring the Narrative Transformation of Online Support for Mental Health Across Communities Before and After Covid-19PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cai, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 07 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The article describes an original research method and introduces some innovations in the procedure. Online communities are an important field to research and the article offers some tools to improve that framework. Major issues: - There is a problem with the information structure. E.g. The authors' opinions on their own method are present in the literature review part, before the study method. Perhaps the place for this information is in the discussion part. Another example is talking about theory and implications in the results section. - There are some bad uses of bibliographic styles. E.g. Charoensukmongkol's (2022) or Amer and Abdalla (2020), are not written in Vancouver style. - It is important to explain what Reddit is and how it works for non-users of this platform. It is also necessary to better describe the people who use that platform (age, countries, languages...). Some of these elements (for example, English language only) should be stated in the limitations section. - Table 1 may contain more important information than the current one. Please explain the process of retaining and deleting posts from each group and the final result. - The method seems not to be fully explained. There are some variables that are not explained in the methods, but are present in the results. - Other important limitations to the decline in Reddit response engagement may be related to platform fatigue or the emergence of new forms of online support with video and audio. Consider alternative explanations for the results. Minor issues: - COVID-19 is written in different styles throughout the paper. - If you use acronyms, describe their meaning the first time you use them (e.g., PSTD, NLP). - The style of the numbers is confusing. Some of them has commas, some of them not. - I personally have concerns about figures 2 and 3. There are many graphic decisions based on aesthetics, and not data (vertical word, word position, word color). It is certainly a very interesting graph, but not in a scientific sense. - Take care of the details of the graphics. Lengends and captions have names like "group 0." All graphics software has ways to change these details. - One of the most cited word in control group is “high school”, is the “teaching” community relevant to this question? - The difference between figures 5 and 6 is not clear. They seem like two very related data with two quite similar graphs. If it is interesting to compare both results, the x-axis has to be the same (days or months). Reviewer #2: Thank you very much for allowing me to review this research paper. I acknowledge the great effort done to finish this paper. The paper has some interesting aspects, but there are several major modifications required before it can be accepted. - First, the introduction would benefit from providing more theoretical background on the topic. The authors should consider moving the discussion of the social support theory from the results section to the introduction, supported by scientific references. - In the literature review, the authors should include more than one reference to support this statement "previous researchers studying the support intensity in online communities…….”.. - The in-text citations for the references to Charoensukmongkol (2022) and Amer and Abdalla (2020) are missing and need to be added. - An abbreviation list should be included, as there are some abbreviations used in the manuscript that are not defined (e.g., NLP). - Regarding section number 6 “Results”, I think that authors mean “Discussion” not results. - The discussion section is currently quite superficial. The authors need to provide more detailed discussions of their results, supported by additional scientific references. Overall, these are the major areas that require attention and modification. Kind Regards, ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes: Mahmoud Abdelwahab Khedr ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307042.r001
Revision 1
25 Jun 2024 Author Response Reviewer #1: Reviewer #1: The article describes an original research method and introduces some innovations in the procedure. Online communities are an important field to research and the article offers some tools to improve that framework. Major issues: - There is a problem with the information structure. E.g. The authors' opinions on their own method are present in the literature review part, before the study method. Perhaps the place for this information is in the discussion part. Another example is talking about theory and implications in the results section. - Thank you for pointing out these structural issues. We have revised the structure of the article accordingly. For instance, we moved the detailed discussion about our research methods to the discussion section and reorganized the literature review to align with the identified gaps and specific research questions we are addressing. Additionally, in the results section, we have restructured the discussion on theory and the details of implications, relocating them to the discussion section. We have also expanded the discussion to explore various potential reasons for the observed decline in support rates. - There are some bad uses of bibliographic styles. E.g. Charoensukmongkol's (2022) or Amer and Abdalla (2020), are not written in Vancouver style. - Thank you for pointing this out. We have revised the citation format to the Vancouver style as required. - It is important to explain what Reddit is and how it works for non-users of this platform. It is also necessary to better describe the people who use that platform (age, countries, languages...). Some of these elements (for example, English language only) should be stated in the limitations section. Thank you for your mention that point. In the limitations section, we have added explanations regarding the inherent limitations of the data and restrictions concerning user languages and we only focus on people using English. Additionally, we have detailed the Reddit platform in the methods section, including descriptions of its user demographics, usage scenarios, and mechanisms. We also validated the effectiveness of this data source based on previous studies. Further, we have discussed other research concerning this data source in the literature review section. - Table 1 may contain more important information than the current one. Please explain the process of retaining and deleting posts from each group and the final result. - Thank you for the suggestions. To further clarify the data processing steps, we have detailed the process of retaining and deleting posts from each group in Section 4.1, 'Data Collection and Random Selection'. The data samples were then randomly selected to ensure representativeness. In Table 1, we provide the results for each group after cleaning the posts and replies, including the number of posts and replies retained for each group and their usage in the study. We hope this information will clearly explain our data processing and selection procedures, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of our research results. We are willing to provide more detailed information if needed. - The method seems not to be fully explained. There are some variables that are not explained in the methods but are present in the results. - Thank you for pointing out the unclear descriptions in our methods section. We have added detailed explanations for each variable and labeled their corresponding names in the charts. - Other important limitations to the decline in Reddit response engagement may be related to platform fatigue or the emergence of new forms of online support with video and audio. Consider alternative explanations for the results. - Thank you for your suggestions. We acknowledge that our initial analysis may not have fully captured the complexity of factors influencing the decline in Reddit response engagement. To address this, we have expanded our discussion to include theoretical explanations and phenomena identified in related studies. We have also incorporated recent articles on changes in online platform user behavior. For example, excessive social media usage has been linked to user fatigue and burnout, which can diminish engagement behaviors. Additionally, the shifting focus towards streaming and other media may divert attention from text-based platforms, and the reduction in non-verbal cues could have impacted communication efficacy. Minor issues: - COVID-19 is written in different styles throughout the paper. - Thank you for your meticulous review and for pointing this out. We have standardized the capitalization style of "Covid-19" throughout the document. - If you use acronyms, describe their meaning the first time you use them (e.g., PSTD, NLP). Thank you for pointing out that we have added a detailed meaning explanation to the abbreviation. - The style of the numbers is confusing. Some of them has commas, some of them not. - Thank you for mentioning this, we have unified the representation of numbers. - I personally have concerns about figures 2 and 3. There are many graphic decisions based on aesthetics, and not data (vertical word, word position, word color). It is certainly a very interesting graph, but not in a scientific sense. - Thank you for your feedback and interest in the figures. The word cloud primarily displays the main n-gram words used by each group during and after the pandemic. By visualizing the frequency of different words through their size in the graphic. In response to your concerns regarding the scientific rigor of this approach, we have revised the presentation to include a more formal bar chart to represent these results, replacing the word cloud. - Take care of the details of the graphics. Lengends and captions have names like "group 0." All graphics software has ways to change these details. - Thank you for pointing out this detail. We have adjusted the legends by using graphics software. - One of the most cited words in control group is “high school”, is the “teaching” community relevant to this question? - Thank you for your observation. The control group indeed includes various subreddit communities such as 'teaching,' which could contribute to the frequent appearance of education-related terms like "high school." Additionally, other communities like 'parenting' and 'ask_science' may also engage in discussions related to educational topics, further influencing the presence of such terms within the group. - The difference between figures 5 and 6 is not clear. They seem like two very related data with two quite similar graphs. If it is interesting to compare both results, the x-axis has to be the same (days or months). - Thank you for pointing this out. Both figures indeed presented similar information, so we have removed one and replaced it with a box plot to better illustrate our findings regarding the decrease in supportive behaviors. This modification allows for a clearer visual comparison and more effective presentation of the data. Reviewer #2: - First, the introduction would benefit from providing more theoretical background on the topic. The authors should consider moving the discussion of the social support theory from the results section to the introduction, supported by scientific references. - Thank you for your suggestion. We have revised the structure of our literature review and expanded our discussion on social support theory in the introduction, supported by relevant scientific references. In addition, the introduction gives a brief summary of research objective to give readers a basic understanding of the research framework. - In the literature review, the authors should include more than one reference to support this statement "previous researchers studying the support intensity in online communities…….”.. - Thank you for your point this out. We had added more reference for this part. - The in-text citations for the references to Charoensukmongkol (2022) and Amer and Abdalla (2020) are missing and need to be added. - Thank you for pointing this out. We have added the appropriate citation details in Vancouver style for these two parts. - An abbreviation list should be included, as there are some abbreviations used in the manuscript that are not defined (e.g., NLP). - Thank you for your suggestion. We have provided detailed definitions and explanations the first time each abbreviation appears. - Regarding section number 6 “Results”, I think that authors mean “Discussion” not results. - Thank you for pointing out the issue. We have corrected the section title from "Results" to "Discussion." - The discussion section is currently quite superficial. The authors need to provide more detailed discussions of their results, supported by additional scientific references. - Thank you for pointing this out. We have enriched the discussion section by incorporating multiple theoretical perspectives, such as computer-mediated communication, the rise of alternative media, and social media fatigue, to provide a deeper analysis of the phenomena and results observed in our study. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307042.r002
28 Jun 2024 Decision Letter - Rogis Baker, Editor Empathy and Redemption: Exploring the Narrative Transformation of Online Support for Mental Health Across Communities Before and After Covid-19 PONE-D-24-14649R1 Dear Dr. Yuxuan Cai, 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. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. 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. Kind regards, Rogis Baker, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307042.r003
Formally Accepted
16 Jul 2024 Acceptance Letter - Rogis Baker, Editor PONE-D-24-14649R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cai, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Rogis Baker Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307042.r004

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