Does Internet Use Boost the Sustainable Subjective Well-Being of Rural Residents? Evidence from Rural China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article explores an important topic, especially for the people in China -as nicely reasoned for in the first two chapters. The chosen methodology is well suited for the analysis and enables the in-depth exploration of the topic under scrutiny. While the international literature is closely related to the discussed topics, only 13 out of over 50 is from the past 3 years, which does not support the actuality of the topic well. While the data are from official national sources, since their collection COVID might have heavily reshaped the landscape of internet usage, especially regarding readiness and willingness. This change shall also be reflected upon, even if not with data, but with the help of relevant secondary sources.
All in all, the paper is a well-structured, logical construct that manages to explore the topic and introduce the correlations of various variables well, however, the language is often hard to understand, a revision of the English is necessary.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very nice article that shows how internet-based activities can promote well-being in people living isolated in rural areas of China.

The work is well written and organized, and I only have minor comments.

Line 125: I would ask you to expand a bit on the consequences of loneliness on wellbeing, and more on the psychological effect. For example, the most recent studies conducted during the 2020 lockdown (the greatest moment of generalized loneliness for most people) clearly showed that social isolation can negatively impact several cognitive mechanisms underlying social interaction (Dalmaso et al., 2021).

My second comment is related to organisation of the general discussion; it is well written too, but I would highlight the good practices that you propose for the next future, perhaps by presenting them in a dedicated sub-paragraph.

References

Dalmaso, M., Castelli, L., & Galfano, G. (2021). Increased gaze cueing of attention during COVID-19 lockdown. IScience, 24(11). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.103283

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I find this article very interesting and well thought out, but I think it should:

1. Review the format of formulas 3 and 4.

2. The authors should take into account that some variables have many categories that make analysis difficult and do not provide much information. For example, Subjective well-being (10) and Education (22).  In the first variable, given the data presented (mean 7.0017 and standard deviation 2.7689), it might be advisable to group the levels based on the relative frequency and create 4 categories, the same for the education variable.

3. In the description of the variables, life satisfaction does not appear.

4. It might be interesting to introduce a variable for geographical location like distance from rural areas to urban agglomerations.

3. I think it would be less confusing if the discussion and the results were separated.

5. In the conclusions, the policy implications are very general and not in line with what is stated in the introduction about the current situation of technology and the internet in rural areas of China.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I am happy with this revised version.