Peer Support of Fathers on Reddit: Quantifying the Stressors, Behaviors, and Drivers

This article aimed to delineate the behavioral patterns of fathers in seeking and providing peer support on the popular social media site Reddit using a sample of 2,393 users. First, fathers' support-seeking posts were characterized, finding that fathers self-disclosed a range of individual, familial, and societal stressors, including topics sensitive to traditional male gender roles. Second, peers' comments were differentiated by support type, with differences observed in the behaviors, emotions, and language that peers use when providing advice, confirmation, and encouragement. Third, the relationship between types of fatherhood stressors and their associated peer comments was mapped. While fathers seeking support for individual stressors received fewer comments, the support provided utilized more action-oriented language. Finally, a statistical model was developed to examine the factors that drive peer support on the fatherhood forums, which are observed to influence the quality of peers' comments and peers' commenting behaviors. Combined, the findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the peer support environment for fathers on social media like Reddit, strengthening the research literature that is limited to qualitative evidence to date. The results have important implications for formal support services targeting fathers, both online and offline. Public Significance Statement Social media and other online peer support environments offer fathers opportunities to overcome barriers that typically impede men from seeking perinatal support through offline avenues. Different types of peer support are found in online environments, including peers' commenting content (encouragement, advice, and confirmation) and behaviors (responsiveness, duration, quantity, depth, and score), which were elicited by different content, behavior, emotion, and linguistic attributes within fathers' support-seeking posts.