PONE-D-22-11967Facebook addiction and affected academic performance among Ethiopian university students: A cross-sectional StudyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dule,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 02 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Md. Tanvir Hossain

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. PLOS ONE does not copy edit accepted manuscripts (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication#loc-5). To that effect, please ensure that your submission is free of typos and grammatical errors

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: 1 - The abstract is long, and the authors should shorten it.

2 - Bringing the research results in the abstract is not compatible with the structure of the one standard paper, and the authors should correct it.

3- Authors should explain the reasons for doing this research and the current challenges in the introduction section.

4 - Authors should add the Contribution section at the end of the introduction.

5 - Why there aren't Methodology and Evaluation sections in the manuscript?

Reviewer #2: I am very grateful to the Editor for giving me a chance to review the manuscript entitled “Facebook addiction and affected academic performance among Ethiopian university students: A cross-sectional Study” to the journal of “PLOS ONE”. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the status of facebook addiction and its relation with academic performance and other correlates among university students. I appreciate the time and effort that the authors have dedicated to preparing the manuscript. I read the manuscript very carefully and consequently raised the quarries and suggestions under two headings: major revisions and minor revisions to improve the manuscript which are as follows:

Major Revisions:

1. In introduction a clear explanation is needed why this study is different from other studies.

2. Major revisions are required in methods and materials section particularly, participants and study settings, study periods and design, illegibility criteria, sample size determination and sampling procedures points. Authors have to give logical explanation under each point for instance, under illegibility criteria, authors mentioned that those students who enrolled into regular program and active facebook users were included in the study; while the first year students were excluded. How did they measure active facebook users? As well as why did they exclude first year students? So logical explanation is needed behind excluding first year students in this study.

3. Logical explanation is needed why this study consider university students as respondents under participants and study settings point of methods and material section.

4. Under sample size determination and sampling procedures point, the authors mentioned that systematic random sampling was used to select the sample size. But the authors did not mention the sampling procedures in details like, what is the starting point or sample number and how did they select that sample number and so on.

5. The conclusion is not presented logically supported by the obtained results.

6. Under Ethical approval and informed consent point, the authors mentioned that the ethical clearance was provided by the ethical review committee of college of health sciences, Mettu University and the Helsinki Declaration principles was kept to perform the study (line no. 251-253). However, they did not mention the reference number of ethical approval.

7. The reference section have to revise (reference no. 5, 9, 11, 23, 27, 30) following the guideline of the journal ‘PLOS ONE’. Some references are very old such as reference no. 19 and 20 are in 2001 and 2007. Recent research works have to incorporate.

8. Overall, the writing of the manuscript have to improve following Standard English.

Minor Revisions:

1. Revision is needed in Key words such as, Self-esteem, Anxiety and depression, Facebook addiction, Study habits and University students (Line no. 48-50).

2. In Introduction section (line no. 56-57) have to rewrite.

3. In conclusion (line no. 235-237) As the results indicated, facebook addiction is affecting mental wellbeing of the students and self-esteem has identified as negative predictor of facebook addiction. This sentences have to rewrite.

The author(s) are suggested to rewrite the manuscript accordingly. Hopefully, the aforesaid comments and suggestions would help to enrich this manuscript.

Reviewer #3: “Sheet for Comments”

Overall for the whole paper please see the format of writing for the journal and format your paper.

Abstract

1. Please write the name of the questionnaires sequentially as per your variables addressed in the study.

2. The long descriptions on statistical analyses run for the study is not necessary in abstract rather some values with the main findings are appreciable.

3. The information on ethics needs a reference number.

Introduction

The introduction is written well and concise.

Methods

1. Ethics information is needed to be included in the methodology section.

2. What demographic variables have you collected?? It is needed to have description on the demographic variables. For instance, different demographic information on the students, like which year, subjects, etc.

3. It would be great if you give a consort flow chart on the inclusion of the participants.

4. Please write about the questionnaires used in your study in the way the journal asks. For instance, subscales? How many?? What is Likert of 1?? What is CA (Chronbach alpha)?? Please state Chronbach Alpha for all the scales.

5. In the statistical analyses section it is needed to be described clearly about the how the multi-collinearity of the variables were assessed and how they were managed. How the correlated variables were managed in analyses for the regression.

Result:

1. Descriptive statistics are needed for the Demographic variables in relation to the independent variables in Table 2 (minimum and maximum are not needed)

2. Some of the descriptions are not clearly stated, like, what do you wanted to mean by money spent for FB? Is it money spent for buying data for FB or else?

3. The demographic information given in Table 1 will be better fitted in sample / participant section.

4. The description of the regression analysis is repeated on the result section and conclusion as well.

Conclusions

1. It is needed to be written without repeating the results in the conclusions again.

Reference

1. Many of the references are not in correct format, for instance they are in all capital letters’ in references

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Saman Forouzandeh

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: please see the format of writing for the journal.docx

PONE-D-22-11967R1Facebook addiction and affected academic performance among Ethiopian university students: A cross-sectional StudyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dule,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has satisfied our scientific requirements for publication.

However, our editorial team have significant concerns about the grammar, usage, and overall readability of the manuscript. PLOS ONE requires that published manuscripts use language which is 'clear, correct, and unambiguous', see our criteria for publication at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/criteria-for-publication#loc-5. We therefore request that you revise the text to fix the grammatical errors and improve the overall readability of the text.

We suggest you have a fluent English-language speaker thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service.

Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (https://www.aje.com/go/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services. If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free.

Please note that we will not be able to proceed with publication of your manuscript until the concerns above are addressed.

Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

* The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript

* A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a supporting information file)

* A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new manuscript file)

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Steve Zimmerman, PhD

Associate Editor, PLOS ONE

on behalf of

Tanvir Hossain

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 26 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Md. Tanvir Hossain

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I rejected the paper the previous time. I rejected the paper the previous time. I rejected the paper the previous time. I rejected the paper the previous time.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: The paper has been significantly improvised.

A big congratulations to the authors.

It is ready to meet the press after rigorus proof reading.

Thank you

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Facebook addiction and affected academic performance among Ethiopian university students: A cross-sectional Study

PONE-D-22-11967R2

Dear Dr. Dule,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Md. Tanvir Hossain

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE