Beyond the Silence: How Men Navigate Infertility Through Digital Communities and Data Sharing

2025-09-12

AI Summary

This study investigates how men with infertility navigate and resist traditional masculine norms that suppress emotional expression, leveraging the Reddit community r/maleinfertility to co-construct a digital hybrid space offering informational support, psychosocial comfort, and self-management. Method: We analyzed 11,095 posts and 79,503 comments using latent Dirichlet allocation (115 topics), cross-community network analysis (identifying 11 subcommunities and key bridging users), and time-lagged regression modeling. Contribution/Results: Medical advice dominates (63.3%); sustained participation correlates significantly with practical guidance and belonging-oriented language—not emotion-focused counseling. Approximately 20% of users serve as core knowledge brokers. We propose a novel “trauma-informed design” framework featuring role-aware identification and navigational scaffolding. Findings reveal a tightly knit yet topically heterogeneous gendered support network, advancing understanding of how marginalized health communities reconfigure care infrastructures through participatory digital practices.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Graph Mining, Social Network Analysis & Community
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Community question answering
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI

Abstract

Men experiencing infertility face unique challenges navigating Traditional Masculinity Ideologies that discourage emotional expression and help-seeking. This study examines how Reddit's r/maleinfertility community helps overcome these barriers through digital support networks. Using topic modeling (115 topics), network analysis (11 micro-communities), and time-lagged regression on 11,095 posts and 79,503 comments from 8,644 users, we found the community functions as a hybrid space: informal diagnostic hub, therapeutic commons, and governed institution. Medical advice dominates discourse (63.3%), while emotional support (7.4%) and moderation (29.2%) create essential infrastructure. Sustained engagement correlates with actionable guidance and affiliation language, not emotional processing. Network analysis revealed structurally cohesive but topically diverse clusters without echo chamber characteristics. Cross-posters (20% of users) who bridge r/maleinfertility and the gender-mixed r/infertility community serve as navigators and mentors, transferring knowledge between spaces. These findings inform trauma-informed design for stigmatized health communities, highlighting role-aware systems and navigation support.

Problem

• Examining how digital communities help men overcome infertility-related emotional barriers
• Analyzing Reddit's role as hybrid support space for medical and emotional needs
• Investigating knowledge transfer and mentorship in stigmatized health communities

Innovation

• Topic modeling on Reddit posts
• Network analysis of micro-communities
• Time-lagged regression for engagement patterns