Studying Unemployment Effects on Mental Health: Social Media versus the Traditional Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper entitled "Studying Unemployment Effects on Mental Health: Social Media versus Traditional Approach" employs the feedback gathered from social media using crowd sourcing techniques with the results obtained (as it puts it "prior to the advent of Big Data"). The paper tackles a very interesting issue of using social media data but it is not very clear how this is related to the scope of the journal in general and to sustainability in particular. I have some comments and suggestions for the authors:

1. The Abstract should be extended and the aims and outcomes should be better explained. It is not very clear what the authors mean by the "results obtained prior to the advent of Big Data". Big Data is used here as a sort of a buzzword and does not have any meaning.
2. The Literature review might be extended by some 10-15 additional relevant sources.
3. The paper is very short - it barely has 8 pages of text (with tables) and the methodology and the experimental design and not explained well. Maybe it would be better to change it status from an "article" to "communication"? Alternatively, it can be extended (see below).
4. The authors state that they "collected the data from public sources" - what does this mean? I understand Twitter was used? Was it just Twitter? 
5. Can the authors elaborate more on using Python (perhaps include the codes and steps)?
6. The Conclusions need to be significantly extended and all repetitions should be excluded. Moreover, the authors should extrapolate on the applicability and transferability of results.
7. The paper would benefit from minor English proofreading.

Author Response

1. he Abstract should be extended and the aims and outcomes should be better explained. It is not very clear what the authors mean by the "results obtained prior to the advent of Big Data". Big Data is used here as a sort of a buzzword and does not have any meaning.

Fully concur. This was an oversight as finalizing a paper sometimes does allow some slip ups. We have addressed the shortcoming

1. The Literature review might be extended by some 10-15 additional relevant sources.

Appreciated the feedback and addresed. Specifically, we have also added the dimension of wisdome of the crowd and fallacy of crowd along with others. Specifically, we have added 11 more sources that we reviewed extensively

1. The paper is very short - it barely has 8 pages of text (with tables) and the methodology and the experimental design and not explained well. Maybe it would be better to change it status from an "article" to "communication"? Alternatively, it can be extended (see below)

Concur and addressed. We had received feedback on making it shorter in the previous Journal for similar work. We have expanded the work to 14 pages without the references without being verbose

1. The authors state that they "collected the data from public sources" - what does this mean? I understand Twitter was used? Was it just Twitter? 

Clarified in the paper with thanks

1. Can the authors elaborate more on using Python (perhaps include the codes and steps)?

Concur and added specific code to each step in Section 3. This makes it more clear for the reader

1. The Conclusions need to be significantly extended and all repetitions should be excluded. Moreover, the authors should extrapolate on the applicability and transferability of results.

Addressed with much appreciation for the constructive feedback

1. The paper would benefit from minor English proofreading.

We sent it to an external source and believe it is much clearer

We are adding the final draft here as well

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is, in summary, an interesting paper aimed to compare the feedback gathered from social media using crowdsourcing techniques to results obtained prior to the advent of Big Data. They found that financial strain is the biggest stressor and concern, onslaught of depression is typical and possible interventions including reemployment and support from friends and family is crucial in minimizing the effects of involuntary unemployment.

The authors may find as follows my main comments/suggestions.

First, when the authors within the Introduction section correctly reported that the clinically significant health effects of unemployment include both physical and mental health strains such as depression and anxiety, they could even mention the association between depression, alexithymia and negative outcomes such as suicidal behavior. In particular, there is an increasing evidence that depression together with alexithymia, particularly in adolescents, may be considered risk factors for suicide, even simply increasing the risk of development of depressive symptoms or per se. In order to briefly discuss this topic (although i understand that the link between depression and suicidal behavior is not completely the main topic of the present manuscript), i suggest to cite, within the main text, the paper published in 2017 on Frontiers in Psychiatry (PMID: 28855878). In addition, the involvement of sensory perception in emotional processes and clinical outcomes has been well demonstrated. Importantly, the unique sensory processing patterns of individuals with major affective disorders and their relationship with unemployment have been reported. Hyposensitivity or hypersensitivity may be "trait" markers of individuals with problem behaviors and interventions should refer to the individual unique sensory profiles and their behavioral and functional impact in the context of real life. Thus, given the above information, my additional suggestion is also to include throughout the manuscript, the paper published in 2016 on Psychiatry Res (PMID: 26738981). This is particularly relevant as the same authors, more ahead (within the Conclusion section), reported that unemployment causes important mental health issue, especially depression.

In addition, the most relevant aims/objectives and hypotheses of the present study should be carefully described within the main text.

Furthermore, the authors should immediately present and discuss, in the first lines of both the Results and Discussion sections, their most relevant study findings. Conversely, they seem to focus with redundance on the main questions they posed as the goals of this study that should have been stressed elsewhere.

Moreover, while the authors provided the most relevant implications of this study, the description of the main caveats of the main text is lacking. Here, the authors should adequately focus on the most important shortcomings of this paper.

Finally, waht is the take-home message of this paper? While the authors reported that their results replicated the traditional model as well as they found the three tenets of prior research on unemployment, they failed, in my opinion, to provide some conclusive remarks about their paper.

Author Response

First, when the authors within the Introduction section correctly reported that the clinically significant health effects of unemployment include both physical and mental health strains such as depression and anxiety, they could even mention the association between depression, alexithymia and negative outcomes such as suicidal behavior. In particular, there is an increasing evidence that depression together with alexithymia, particularly in adolescents, may be considered risk factors for suicide, even simply increasing the risk of development of depressive symptoms or per se. In order to briefly discuss this topic (although i understand that the link between depression and suicidal behavior is not completely the main topic of the present manuscript), i suggest to cite, within the main text, the paper published in 2017 on Frontiers in Psychiatry (PMID: 28855878). In addition, the involvement of sensory perception in emotional processes and clinical outcomes has been well demonstrated. Importantly, the unique sensory processing patterns of individuals with major affective disorders and their relationship with unemployment have been reported. Hyposensitivity or hypersensitivity may be "trait" markers of individuals with problem behaviors and interventions should refer to the individual unique sensory profiles and their behavioral and functional impact in the context of real life. Thus, given the above information, my additional suggestion is also to include throughout the manuscript, the paper published in 2016 on Psychiatry Res (PMID: 26738981). This is particularly relevant as the same authors, more ahead (within the Conclusion section), reported that unemployment causes important mental health issue, especially depression.

Very valid and appreciated. We have incoporated this

In addition, the most relevant aims/objectives and hypotheses of the present study should be carefully described within the main text.

Appreciated and addressed along with few other comments from another reviewer

Furthermore, the authors should immediately present and discuss, in the first lines of both the Results and Discussion sections, their most relevant study findings. Conversely, they seem to focus with redundance on the main questions they posed as the goals of this study that should have been stressed elsewhere.

Very valid and fully concur. We have rewritten that part and eliminatd the redundant text

Moreover, while the authors provided the most relevant implications of this study, the description of the main caveats of the main text is lacking. Here, the authors should adequately focus on the most important shortcomings of this paper.

Fully concur. Rewritten the conclusion and also addressed

Finally, waht is the take-home message of this paper? While the authors reported that their results replicated the traditional model as well as they found the three tenets of prior research on unemployment, they failed, in my opinion, to provide some conclusive remarks about their paper.

very valid comment. We have rewritten the conclusion for our paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been revised and most of my comments were taken into account. However, it is still not clear how the paper is related to the concept of Sustainability and how it fits into the scope of this journal.

The authors added this explanation into the Abstract "While many researchers are using data from social media and micro-blogging sites in the past few years, do they provide results consistent with traditional research? Furthermore, if the data is indeed consistent, is it detailed enough to deduce possible reasons and remedies?". I do not see the link with the sustainability and sustainable development here. This needs to be clearly explained.

Overall, I think that a vast amount of work was invested into the paper. However, it needs some final touches and revisions (most notably explaining the link with the sustainability).

Author Response

Thanks so much! We have revised both the abstract and Introduction to reflect the comments. The feedback was very helpful as we had the implicit assumption that such work is necessary for a sustainable society in the future. Looking at the comment made us realize that we need to explicitly make it clear. The changes maed in the Abstract and Introduction are in a different color to make it easier for the reviewer. 

Thanks, again!

Reviewer 2 Report

In the revised manuscript, the authors addressed most of the major questions raised by reviewers improving the main structure of the present paper. I have no further additional comments.

Author Response

Thanks so much for the time taken to help us with this! We greatly appreciate it.