Internet-Based Mental Health Survey Research: Navigating Internet Bots on Reddit

Area of Science:

• Social Science
• Psychology
• Data Science

Background:

• Online recruitment via social media platforms like Reddit is common for research.
• Internet bots can compromise data integrity in online studies.
• Identifying and mitigating bot infiltration is crucial for valid research findings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate methods for enhancing data integrity in online recruitment by detecting and reducing internet bot participation.
• To assess the effectiveness of different recruitment strategies on mitigating bot responses in a study on autism and suicide risk.

Main Methods:

• A multistage recruitment process was employed on Reddit mental health subreddits across four rounds.
• Bot detection strategies were implemented, including analysis of response locations and linguistic patterns.
• Recruitment post modifications, such as removing compensation advertisements, were tested.

Main Results:

• Initial recruitment rounds showed a high prevalence of internet bot responses, with a significant proportion originating from limited geographic locations.
• The proportion of detected bots varied significantly across recruitment rounds.
• Removing compensation advertisements in the final recruitment round led to a significant decrease in bot responses compared to earlier rounds.

Conclusions:

• A multistage recruitment approach can improve data integrity by actively addressing internet bot infiltration.
• Eliminating compensation advertisements in recruitment posts is an effective strategy to reduce bot participation.
• Findings offer practical insights for researchers conducting online surveys susceptible to bot interference.