When a reader downloads your paper on Academia, they are given the opportunity to answer this question: What sparked your interest in this paper?
When a person leaves a reason for downloading one of your papers, we'll send you an email indicating that they've done so. If you get a lot of reasons for downloading, we might send you an email indicating that you have many reasons waiting!
You can always read your reasons in your inbox. You can tell a message sent by another Academia reader apart from a reason for downloading by the green download icon next to the reason.
If you click on the reason, you'll see the name of user who left the reason, their main affiliation, and the paper that they're leaving the reason on. You can respond right in the message to the continue the conversation about your paper or topic!
The reasons that you leave for other users will also appear in your messages inbox, so you can track what you've said, and to allow authors to follow up with you.
If you don't wanted to be alerted of getting reasons for downloading for your papers, you can always turn this off in your email notifications by clicking the check box next to "A reader provides a reason for downloading one of my papers."