Nighttime Phone Use and Past Exposure to Cyberbullying and Their Impact on Sleep and Psychological Wellbeing in Australian Children Aged 7 to 19 Years

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors

After reviewing your manuscript I have noted the following points which I mention below.

1.- First, it seems advisable to provide a more detailed description of the informed consent process. In particular, it would be beneficial to indicate how the schools managed the informed consents and what measures were taken to ensure that participants fully understood the purpose of the study and its implications.

2.- Moreover, expanding the Methods section by including more details on data collection methods is recommended. For instance, explaining how the questionnaires were administered, what types of devices were used, and how the privacy and confidentiality of participants' responses were ensured can offer greater transparency.

3.- About the statistical analyses, while the performed analyses are described, it would be advantageous to include more detailed justifications for the selection of specific models. Explaining why binary and ordinal logistic regression models were chosen and how the results of likelihood ratio tests were interpreted can help readers better understand the robustness of the analysis.

Likewise, it would be convenient that the statistical analysis section does not contain data that should be eliminated and moved to the results section, focused on the description of the sample.

4.- In relation qwith limitations and biases, Perhaps it would be interesting to point out that one of the main problems is the bias coming from self-reported data. 

Also, since I have not observed this in the methodology, I would like to ask the authors whether or not they have included "trick" questions to ensure that participants did not randomly answer the questions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

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Thanks to the authors for proposing this important study to the journal. The paper is congruent with the goals of the journal, the data are interesting and contribute to the current literature in a significant way. However, in my opinion there are important revisions to be made to the manuscript. The suggested citations are only indicative, and therefore are notCyberbullying is not just an electronic form of traditional bullying, but has special characteristics that make it something different. Therefore, rephrase the definition at the beginning of the chapter.
- What are the various actions and types of cyberbullying and why do they lead to a decrease in mental health?
- In your cultural context is cyberbullying considered a social emergency? and how widespread is it compared to traditional bullying?
- I think we need to extend the quotes and arguments regarding phone (and social media) use at night and its implications for sleep disturbances and aggressive behavior. It should also be better argued how excessive use of electronic devices can affect sleep quality (https://doi.org/10.1177/02724316231160142).

- I believe that the motivations that lead young people to use their phones need to be better clarified and should be brought up at the beginning of the introductory section. We need to better explore what psychological needs adolescents and children may be responding to through phone use (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107204).
- Better clarify the distinction between sleep quality and sleep duration, and argue their possible association.
- Better clarify why your research feels it necessary to include such a large age spam sample.
- Emphasize the strengths of your study (discussion) and argue clearly what your study introduces that is new compared to the current literature (introduction and conclusion).
- I do not understand what you mean by “apparatus” in the materials/tools section.
- The where appropriate, report the alpha of chronback. Also, better clarify how scores are calculated in the individual instruments.
- More information needs to be added regarding approval by an ethics committee, participant selection process, possible use of rewards, guarantees of anonymity.
- Discuss in more detail the practical implications of the study and recommendations for future research.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

This paper reports the findings of a larger survey of children ages 7 to 19 in Australia that assessed mobile phone use during nighttime, amount of sleep, and mental health in the context of having been cyberbullied at least once in the past school term. The authors rightly hypothesize that use of mobiles at night will interfere with sleep and that lack of sleep is likely to be related to poor mental health as shown in Figure 1. It is also plausible that experience of cyberbullying is related to poor sleep and mental health. What is not so clear is why nighttime mobile use should interact with cyberbullying in its relations with sleep and mental health. The measure of cyberbullying may have nothing to do with nighttime mobile phone use, although those who use their phones more at night may be more likely to experience cyberbullying.

 

The authors make the study extremely challenging to comprehend with multiple logistic regression models looking at mental health and sleep as a function of the other variables. A much simpler analysis would look at sleep and mental health as correlated outcomes with cyberbullying and phone use as independent predictors of the correlated outcomes. That way one can determine whether either of the predictors has unique effects on either of the outcomes apart from their correlation, which is likely to be high, since poor sleep can affect mental health and the reverse is also likely. There are analytic methods to accomplish this task, such as structural equation modeling or regression approaches that treat the two outcomes as potentially related.

 

The finding that mobile phone use is not related to mental health in boys who were cyberbullied is interesting but the way the data are presented makes it hard to see this interaction. The figures that show what are described as slopes (dy/dx) are difficult to understand when a simple depiction of the rates by gender for phone use and cyberbullying would serve the purpose. It is possible for example that this is due to a ceiling effect and is not of much interest otherwise. And in the context of no particular reason to expect an interaction with past cyberbullying, there is even less to be learned from this finding.

 

The major contribution of this work is the large sample and age range with measures of mobile phone use at night potentially related to both lack of sleep and poor mental health. One cannot determine causality and so I would recommend a simpler title like: Nighttime mobile phone use and past exposure to cyberbullying as related to sleep and mental health in Australian children ages 7 to 19.

 

It would also help to explain how one obtained the cyberbullying score from a measure that assessed cyberbullying in the past 2 weeks. In addition, any information on how well the sample matches the demographics of Australian school children would add to the validity of the study.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors present a study on night-time phone use and cyberbullying and their impact on well-being in the underage population. The study was conducted on a large population (n=53 734 pts.) and addresses a socially important issue. The results presented in the study are interesting and the authors discuss their findings in an interesting way in the context of current knowledge. They also point out the limitations of the research methodology. The paper needs only minor corrections: 

 

The authors present a cross-sectional study, it would be worth mentioning this in the methodology and also provide the sampling method. To assess the consequences of night-time use of mobile devices, the PHQ-4 scale was used to assess psychological distress; although the authors justify the choice of this scale, the limitations of this tool should be discussed in more detail. The sleep assessment did not analyze parameters other than sleep duration (e.g. questions about feeling sleep deprived, risk of falling asleep during the day, etc.) This should be mentioned in the limitations.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The authors make clear in both the abstract and the theoretical framework of the paper, the objective, the research questions and the working hypothesis: "Our hypothesis is that using the telephone at night, or being a victim of cyberbullying, will directly increase the likelihood of sleeping poorly and suffering psychological distress. Furthermore, we propose that the risk of poor sleep and psychological distress will be greater for victims of cyberbullying who use the phone more frequently at night. Based on the existing literature, we hypothesize that older age and female gender are associated with a higher frequency of psychological distress, sleep deprivation, nighttime telephone use, and cyberbullying (line 93-97). Also, Figure 1. Proposed Model of Night-Time Phone Use as a Moderator of the Effects of Cyberbullying on Sleep and Psychological Distress explains quite clearly the conceptual origin of their research. Perhaps, what should be deepened in the theoretical framework from the conceptual point of view is the gender gap between women and men in the effect of cell phones. The authors mention the following "Our previous research also found that the frequency of nighttime phone use and sleeping less than 8 hours per night not only increased with age in boys, but especially in girls. The impact of gender on the effect of nighttime cyberbullying on psychological well-being deserves further attention" (line 29). On the one hand, one could delve deeper into the effects of cell phones on girls (although the authors cite studies in this regard it is not fully explained why these effects are stronger in girls than in boys) perhaps looking for more studies in this regard would help to understand this important point of the paper. On the other hand, it would be somewhat more appropriate to mention this type of statement in the discussion and results of the analysis.

 

The methodological section is quite clear, although neither the objectives nor the research questions are mentioned again and it is not made explicit what type of quantitative or qualitative analysis will be carried out for each one. The authors mention at least 3 questions that could become specific objectives: "The following research questions will be explored: (i) whether using the phone at night directly increases the risk of sleeping poorly and suffering psychological distress, (ii) whether being a victim of cyberbullying directly increases the risk of sleeping poorly and suffering psychological distress, and (iii) whether using the phone at night and being a victim of cyberbullying interact to increase the risk of sleeping poorly and suffering psychological distress" that would be interesting to specify.

 

The results and discussion are fairly consistent with the rest of the paper, although a more detailed analysis of the findings achieved in terms of research questions and specific objectives is lacking. Finally, the authors make clear the limitations of the study, such as the use of secondary data or the possibility of using other electronic devices such as laptops, tablets or smart watches to communicate at night (line 384) something that facilitates reading and helps in understanding the analysis.

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 6 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments and Suggestions to Author(s)

To begin with, I want to express my gratitude to the author(s) for giving me the chance to review this great piece of work. I read the article with great pleasure and think it is interesting and relevant. It is also well-written and clearly organized. And I am grateful for the contribution to see that the concept of “Night-Time Mobile Phone Use, Cyberbullying, and their Impact on Sleep and Mental Health: Study in 53,734 Australian Children Aged 7  to 19 Years” in the Australian cultural context. As a reader, there are only a few points that should be addressed to learn more about the topic, methods, and results, as well as what is believed to be improved in the manuscript.

General Comment

·        The study itself is interesting and pertinent, and it is also well written and structured.

·        The language used in the manuscript is very simple and easy to understand. The authors provide extensive, detailed reporting of a wide range of results. It has been a while since I didn't miss any results in a manuscript, I must admit.

·        I salute the authors for their thorough research! New empirical methods, statistical analysis, a theoretical approach, and data modeling are all used in this study along with additional analyses that the authors have worked very hard to produce.

·        The topic and scope of the paper should be broad enough to warrant publication in the journal of adolescence.

·        The issue is  interesting and very crucial in the 21^st century.

2. Title of the research: Night-Time Mobile Phone Use, Cyberbullying, and their Impact on Sleep and Mental Health: Study in 53,734 Australian Children Aged 7 3 to 19 Years”

·        The title and the manuscript appear to be relevant and fall within the aims and scope of the Journal.

·        The topic is original and tries to examine phenomena that lack a long line of research, especially on the night-Time Mobile Phone Use, Cyberbullying, Sleep quality and Mental Health on Australian children.

3.  Introduction

·        The research examining the associations between night-time phone use, cyberbullying, sleep, and psychological distress. Mental health, as well as examining different age cohorts and gender differences adds depth to the study design.

·        In addition, the literature review is accurate enough and based on the recent sources.

·        This manuscript has a brief synthesis of the literature and some of the references are relevant and however I would like to advise the author(s) to include the relevant and recent references that match with the issue or relationship.

·        Another important point in Figure (iii) below Nighttime phone use moderate the cyber bulling and sleep and psychological distress. But I did not find any result related to moderation effect. Please make this sure and reconsider it.

The weakness of the introduction is that it does not provide a clear and concise research objective. While it mentions the association between night-time phone use, cyberbullying, sleep, and psychological distress in childhood, it does not clearly state the specific research questions or hypotheses. The introduction also lacks a comprehensive overview of existing literature and gaps in knowledge that the study aims to address.

4. Method

·        The study employs binary and ordinal logistic regression models, which can provide insights into the relationships between variables and allow for the examination of interaction effects is one quality of the method section.

·        The study utilized a large convenience sample from all states and territories of Australia, providing a diverse representation of children. Therefore, the finings is generalizable and it is the best evidence for international readers.

·        The author(s) used four item Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) which contains two items each assessing depression and anxiety what reliability and confirmatory factor analysis report found in your study. Now a days it is recommended to apply CFA and composite reliability in the adapted scales.

·        Why the single items preferred in the study? The authors used Single questions to assess night-time phone use, sleep duration, and frequency of cyberbullying. How could the authors check the ratability of the measures. Please justify or add some evidence that convince the readers.

·        The study highly depends on a dataset provided by Resilient Youth Australia, which may introduce biases or limitations in the data collection process. Out this as limitation section may benefited the study.

·        What type of design was used? Please include in your revised section and make it clear.

·        Another my concern is that I missed Tolerance and VIF to identify multi-collinearity, as well normality of the data, in the paper. I advise the authors to perform the suggested analysis.

5. Result

·        The very great quality of the study was investigating the associations between night-time phone use, cyberbullying, sleep, and psychological distress, considering the potential risks and implications for interventions as well as examining different age cohorts and gender differences adds depth makes the study findings interesting.

·        The analysis has a tremendous qualities, including Cyberbullying and night-time phone use. independently detrimental to sleep and psychological wellbeing. However, the author missed the detection of multi-collinearity, CFA and composite reliability of the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), lack of clear justification why the author(s) used single item to test sleep duration, and frequency of cyberbullying.

6. Discussion

·        One of my comments is here is the study highly reliant on single-item measures for assessing sleep and cyberbullying, which may not provide a comprehensive and accurate picture of these variables and it is very difficult to check the measures’ reliability and validity. So, my suggestion is to mentioned it in the limitation section.

 

Good Luck!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The analysis and presentation of the findings is much clearer in this version. However, you are not at all clear that your major hypothesis about the interaction between phone use and cyberbullying was not supported in the way you expected. Please be clearer about that in the Discussion and the Abstract.

Also, many of your paragraphs are way too long. Try to break them up more in the introduction and the Discussion.

Finally, did you give participants a description of cyberbullying so that they knew what you were asking? And if you only asked about it in the past two weeks, how do you know how often it happened in the school term?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think it is obvious why you got the findings regarding the interaction. Night time phone use did predict stress in those who were not bullied because they were at lower risk of stress to begin with. So, the effect makes perfect sense. It may not be what you predicted, but it is not a mystery.