https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.107.19

We ask The Journal of Physiology’s Editor-in-Chief about her experience

Reddit is a massively popular social news and discussion website with over 234 million members that has over eight billion page views per month. The ‘subreddit’ r/Science (also known as the The New Reddit Journal of Science) has over 16 million subscribers – that means over 16 million people interested in science! Reddit is a great way to engage with the online community and Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions allow experts to spread their knowledge through an informal Q&A.

We asked Kim Barrett, Distinguished Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Physiology, about her experience doing an AMA about her research on Reddit.

Kim’s AMA proved to be largely popular with over 1500 ‘upvotes’ (equivalent to likes on Facebook) and over 200 comments and questions. The co-creater of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, also chipped in on Twitter, thanking Kim for her contribution to the science subreddit.

Reddit is a great way to engage with thousands of people about your research – and it’s free! All it takes is a minimal amount of planning and a few hours of your time.

Have you ever used Reddit before? Did you find it easy to use and to schedule the AMA?

I had hardly even heard of Reddit before my AMA. The conventions, acronyms and language were a bit intimidating at first. It was easy to navigate the scheduling but I didn’t receive much in the way of confirmation and feedback, leaving me a bit uncertain up till the day whether it was really going to happen, or if I had messed up somehow.

Were you surprised by the amount of engagement?

This really blew me away. When I logged on to the AMA I was amazed to find more than 1000 questions there already, with more coming in as the session began. I started out at the top of the list, but soon realised I could not possibly answer everything. After a while I started cherry-picking a bit to select the questions that were either the most straightforward to answer, or the most interesting to me.

Was there a big difference between engagement with the public and scientists? Were the questions vastly different?

The majority of questions were thoughtful and appropriate no matter who was asking them. It was clear that there were quite a few scientists and doctors engaged, but also members of the public.

Were there any surprising questions?

There were a number of questions that addressed quite personal and specific health issues. I guess I should not have been surprised, but it also was certainly not the venue to offer heath recommendations. There was also a fascinating question from an individual who wanted to know whether his childhood habit of ingesting washing up liquid bubbles would have altered his microbiome. I’ve never heard of kids doing that!

What are the advantages of engaging with the public on Reddit?

This was a low risk, efficient way of engaging with a lot of different people from all over the world. It is a very easy way to highlight an area and get your expertise out there. It was also a good opportunity to highlight The Journal of Physiology special issue on the microbiome [J Physiol 595(2), 415–598], which was published in the same week.

Would you do an AMA on Reddit again?
I would gladly do this again. Perhaps the only limitation is that with the number of questions and the time allotted, it was not possible to engage in lengthy conversations with individuals.

Would you recommend that other scientists engage with Reddit?
I think it’s really important that we as scientists make efforts to provide our expertise to the public and explain our areas of research in ways that are understandable to all. This is particularly urgent when research and research funding seems to be under attack. On both sides of the Atlantic, we need the public on our side to convince policymakers that research is a sound investment for public funds.

What are your top tips for other scientists or academics who want to do an AMA?
It is important to define a topic that is sufficiently broad and topical to attract interest, and to address your answers to an educated lay audience. I was a bit intimidated at the beginning but it is important to remember that you are not on stage and there is nothing to prevent you looking up a few facts before committing to an answer. The most important piece of advice is to just jump in. It’s only a two-hour commitment and there is a lot of flexibility in scheduling it at a time that suits you. I was so intrigued by the questions that I actually went back at lunchtime and answered a few more!