“It Was Definitely like an Altered Social Scene”: Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Restrictions on U.S. Adolescents’ Social Relationships

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

First of all, many congratulations on the relevance of the study.

I would like to highlight some points that in my opinion need improvement:

(1) the conclusions in the abstract are not clear. Everything looks like results and does not present implications for the future.

(2) the use of ATLAS.ti should be included in the abstract

(3) the study had Ethics Committee approval, were all confidentiality principles safeguarded?

(4) race/ethnicity differences are explored in the results, as are BIPOC and LGBTQ, and intimate relationships, but not in the literature.

(5) discourses should be highlighted in the text for better understanding, in a table for example.

(6) There is no conclusion or discussion. The discussion only includes limitations and implications for the future, which should be other sections

Author Response

Thank you to all of the reviewers for their insightful thoughts and reflections.  We completely agree with the point that all three reviewers made about the need for a better analysis and conclusion at the end of the paper.  We recognize that this was a gap in the first version of the paper and have made an effort to significantly bolster that portion of the paper.  In addition, we have addressed your specific recommendations as outlined below:

 

Reviewer 1

 

• the conclusions in the abstract are not clear. Everything looks like results and does not present implications for the future.

We greatly appreciate this comment and have significantly expanded the discussion and recommendations section to provide more integration 

• the use of ATLAS.ti should be included in the abstract  

We have included the use of ATLAS.ti in the abstract.

•  the study had Ethics Committee approval, were all confidentiality principles safeguarded?

The following explanation has been added to the procedures to describe the steps we took to protect participants:  “We made every effort to safeguard the confidentiality of participants. All interviews were video and audio recorded using Zoom. We immediately destroyed all videos.  Once we received the Zoom-generated transcription for each interview, we de-identified the transcripts, replaced all names with participant codes, and used the audio recording to verify the accuracy of the transcription.  Upon completion of the verification, we destroyed all audio recordings. All of participants’ personal information was stored in a password protected, encrypted file.  We stored deidentified data on a separate server in a password protected, encrypted file..”

• race/ethnicity differences are explored in the results, as are BIPOC and LGBTQ, and intimate relationships, but not in the literature.  

As requested, we highlighted this evidence from the literature and added the sentence: “Given the social and political climate at the time, many also expected the pandemic would exacerbated vulnerability for LGBTQ and BIPOC youth was also predicted early on in the pandemic (Selerno, Williams, Gattamorta, 2020; Orminston, Williams, 2022).”

• discourses should be highlighted in the text for better understanding, in a table for example.

Thank you for highlighting the challenge of identifying the quotes in the text.  We discussed this at length.  Given the narrative nature of this paper, we were not able to extract the quotes from the text and put them into a table. We were unable to do this in a way that maintained the integrity of the presentation of the qualitative data and share the narrative.  In an attempt to better highlight the quotes, we have highlighted every  participant number in bold in order to signal to the reader a quote was coming.  If you have another suggestion about how to elevate the quotes, we are happy to consider it. 

• There is no conclusion or discussion. The discussion only includes limitations and implications for the future, which should be other sections

Again, thank you for this reflection.  We have extensively revised the discussion to include more integration, analysis, and recommendations. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Discussion

This is a really study that explores the diversity of adolescent social experiences during Covid. However, I was quite disappointed in the discussion as there was very little attempt made to highlight the strengths of the study and relate it to existing literature/similar studies. The results section was packed with lots of interesting data which were not picked up in discussion and expanded further. What do these findings mean for adolescents who experienced social restrictions, how could this have long lasting impacts on their lives, are there any policy/practice implications? This discussion needs to put the results in context and pinpoint the contribution of this study.

Sample queries

Adolescents aged 10-24 is such a huge age range and a 10 year old is going to have a hugely different experience to that of someone in their 20s. I would have like more discussion about how having this range impacted the study results and why the authors decided to have this range. Most participants were on the older side, why was this and why did the authors feel it was important to keep including the few younger participants? 

Why do the authors think most of the participants were female? How might of this have impacted on the results?

I think it is important for the authors to discuss their sample and its weighting in further depth. These potential limitations need to be acknowledged in the discussion as well. 

Ethics

The authors mention disclosures of suicidality and family violence. I would have liked to seen a sentence or two about how these disclosures were managed sensitively and safely and the training and support the researcher had to manage these. 

Overall, I think this study is valuable, the introduction set out why this study is important and the results were interesting. But it fell a little flat during the discussion and failed to contextualize the results further and discussion the implications of the research. 

Author Response

Thank you to all of the reviewers for their insightful thoughts and reflections.  We completely agree with the point that all three reviewers made about the need for a better analysis and conclusion at the end of the paper.  We recognize that this was a gap in the first version of the paper and have made an effort to significantly bolster that portion of the paper.  In addition, we have addressed your specific recommendations as outlined below:

• I was quite disappointed in the discussion as there was very little attempt made to highlight the strengths of the study and relate it to existing literature/similar studies. The results section was packed with lots of interesting data which were not picked up in discussion and expanded further. What do these findings mean for adolescents who experienced social restrictions, how could this have long lasting impacts on their lives, are there any policy/practice implications? This discussion needs to put the results in context and pinpoint the contribution of this study.

Thank you very much for this feedback.  We have revised the discussion and the implications section of this paper. 

 

• Adolescents aged 10-24 is such a huge age range and a 10 year old is going to have a hugely different experience to that of someone in their 20s. I would have like more discussion about how having this range impacted the study results and why the authors decided to have this range. Most participants were on the older side, why was this and why did the authors feel it was important to keep including the few younger participants? 

We greatly appreciate this insight and this challenge when working across the wide range of adolescence.  At the same time, we conceptualized this study to capture the range of experiences across adolescence.  We have added the sentence “ This wide age range was included to capture the diversity of developmental experiences across adolescence - from puberty through emerging adulthood.” to the description of the methods help clarify this intentional choice. We also added the sentence: “Although early adolescents (10-14 years old) made up the smallest portion of the sample, we included them in the analysis because most themes were consistent across age ranges.” to the description of the participants to explain why we chose to include the younger youth in the analysis.  

• Why do the authors think most of the participants were female? How might of this have impacted on the results?

We have added this sentence to the discussion: “The sample majority of participants identified as female which limited our understanding of the experience of male and non-binary adolescents.”

• I think it is important for the authors to discuss their sample and its weighting in further depth. These potential limitations need to be acknowledged in the discussion as well. 

We have added explanation to the description of the sample and to the limitations section to better address this. 

• The authors mention disclosures of suicidality and family violence. I would have liked to seen a sentence or two about how these disclosures were managed sensitively and safely and the training and support the researcher had to manage these. 

The following language has been added to the Procedure section: “Given the sensitivity of issues many of the interviewees raised during the interviews, all participants were offered referrals and support at the conclusion of the study.  The interviewer is a trained mandated reporter and when participants disclosed experiencing depression or feelings of self-harm, she followed mandated reporting procedures to ensure they had appropriate supportive services.”

• Overall, I think this study is valuable, the introduction set out why this study is important and the results were interesting. But it fell a little flat during the discussion and failed to contextualize the results further and discussion the implications of the research. 

Again, thank you for this reflection.  We have extensively revised the discussion to include more integration, analysis, and recommendations. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is relevant in that it reflects how young people coped with the Covid-19 pandemic, and the chosen methodology, in this case qualitative, allows questions to emerge that would otherwise be difficult to answer. 

In this sense, it is suggested to include:

-In the procedure: the description of the 16 questions asked in the interviews and their possible theoretical basis. 

-In the analysis: the categorization, coding, and recoding, the emerging themes that emerged from the analysis with ATLAS.ti to better understand the results obtained and the subsequent conclusions.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you to all of the reviewers for their insightful thoughts and reflections.  We completely agree with the point that all three reviewers made about the need for a better analysis and conclusion at the end of the paper.  We recognize that this was a gap in the first version of the paper and have made an effort to significantly bolster that portion of the paper.  In addition, we have addressed your specific recommendations as outlined below:

• It is suggested to include:  In the procedure: the description of the 16 questions asked in the interviews and their possible theoretical basis. 

To address this we have added the following language to the Procedures section: “We used a semi-structured interview guide (available upon request), which included 16 open-ended questions with relevant probes asking about how COVID-19 restrictions had impacted participants’ social relationships including platonic and romantic relationships with peers, as well as relationships with family, teachers, and other adults. We developed the interview guide by reviewing constructs relevant to social development in adolescence and through a co-design session with four adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19.”

•  it is suggested to include: In the analysis: the categorization, coding, and recoding, the emerging themes that emerged from the analysis with ATLAS.ti to better understand the results obtained and the subsequent conclusions.

We have added the following explanation to the analysis section to better describe the coding and analysis process: “We imported the transcribed, verified transcripts into ATLAS.ti. Following the interpretive design of this project, the first author, who conducted all the interviews, also coded the data. Immediately following each interview, she would write reflection notes. From these reflection notes, she began to develop major theme areas, which she entered into ATLAS.ti.  Once each transcript was cleaned and finalized and imported into ATLAS.ti, the first author began coding using the codes that emerged from her notes, refining and expanding the generative codebook throughout the coding process. After coding all interviews, she identified the most commonly emerging codes that highlighted the clearest and most focused themes, and completed a second round of coding of all interviews with a focus on those codes and subcodes.”

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Congratulations on the significant improvements; however, I think the discussion still needs further exploration of the results based on the literature.

 

Author Response

Thank you for this invitation to further summarize the results.  We have added more to the discussion to address this request.

Reviewer 2 Report

I am happy with the changes made and I think this has improved the paper, especially the discussion section. I am happy to accept the paper as it stands.

Author Response

Thank you for your thoughtful review.