Parental views on their children’s smartphone use during personal and relational activities

Kateřina Lukavská; Roman Gabrhelík

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0308258

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 18, 2024
10 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Annesha Sil, Editor PONE-D-24-02065Parental views on their children’s smartphone use during personal and family routinesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gabrhelík, 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. Your manuscript has been evaluated by two reviewers and their comments are available below. They believe the manuscript would benefit from a more thorough explanation of the methodological details and justification of statistical models applied. Could you please revise your manuscript carefully to address all the comments? Please submit your revised manuscript by May 24 2024 11:59PM. 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The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 ****** 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: 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: The paper "Parental views on their children’s smartphone use during personal and family routines" examines parental views on children's smartphone use during their daily routines and children's SU during these routines. The manuscript is well written, and the analyses are appropriate, but I have some issues with the terminology and the construct/definition of these routines. For me, daily routines represent some mundane and "automatic" activities, such as brushing teeth, so I was confused when I read your manuscript. When looking into your items, they seem to be family/peer interactions or activities, not necessarily routines. I would recommend renaming these routines in such a way or providing a more clear explanation in the introduction of how and why these interactions and activities are considered routines. I would also recommend dividing routines into categories of family and personal routines, as parents may have different views on these two categories and children may behave differently. Following this, I think abbreviations in the text would benefit from this (e.g., SUPR: personal routines, SUFR: family routines). As I mentioned, some of the routines are related to interactions with family members or peers, and you look into how they are related to the SU. This can be seen as technoference and/or phubbing, and I think your paper would benefit from discussing your results in this context, at least for the routines that are related to the interaction with others. All in all, this paper is novel in the field and shows some new perspectives on children's SU, but would benefit from more clear construct definition and clarification. I would recommend not using abbreviations in the first sentence of the abstract. It would be better to write down the whole expression and put the abbreviation in the brackets (as is in the main text). When describing scales of parental warmth and control, use the full name of the scale when first mentioning it. There are also several citing issues and errors I saw throughout the manuscript; read and revise these errors carefully. Reviewer #2: This study uses a sample of parents of children (aged 6-18) from Czech Republic to quantitatively describe parents’ perceptions of children’s use of smartphones during some routine events. The results reveal differences based on children’s age and some interesting associations with parents’ attitudes and parental warmth and control. Below are some of my suggestions for improvement: 1. In the abstract, it might be helpful to mention the age range and gender of both the parent sample and of their children. 2. Page 4, “Guidelines for parental regulation of specifically SU have been proposed by the Italian Paediatric Society,…”: What about from other organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics? 3. “this relationship could not be fully attributed to the cross-sectional design of synthesised studies [27].” I have a hard time understanding this sentence. Please clarify more. 4. Page 5: This is a really long paragraph. Please consider breaking it down. 5. Overall, in the introduction, there is a lack of in-depth literature review on children’s SUR and related phenomena, such as smartphone use during dinner time and during time spent with family. And there is a lack of literature review on parents’ perceptions of this. 6. A concerning part of the method is that the selection and definition of the 14 routines being studied are unclear and seem arbitrary. Please explain the scientific method/procedure for how these 14 routines were determined. 7. Some of the routines are quite confusing. For example, what does "during a visit" mean/? 8. For between-group comparison, why choosing 10/11 to be the breaking point for children versus adolescents? 9. I think results from the regression model should drive the main result interpretation and discussion rather than the correlations. In the regression model, it is important that many potential confounding factors, including the sociodemographic characteristics of both parents and children, are controlled. ****** 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: No Reviewer #2: 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". 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Revision 1
30 May 2024 Author Response Response to reviewers Dear Editor, dear Reviewers, We would like to thank the Editor and the Reviewers for their valuable comments on our manuscript. We believe that we have addressed all key concerns while preserving the scientific aims of the original submission. It is our opinion that the revised manuscript has improved in terms of quality and clarity. A detailed item-by-item responses to all comments follow. We have addressed all the additional Journal Requirements, incl. data availability and funding information. Reviewer #1: The paper "Parental views on their children’s smartphone use during personal and family routines" examines parental views on children's smartphone use during their daily routines and children's SU during these routines. The manuscript is well written, and the analyses are appropriate, but I have some issues with the terminology and the construct/definition of these routines. #1) For me, daily routines represent some mundane and "automatic" activities, such as brushing teeth, so I was confused when I read your manuscript. When looking into your items, they seem to be family/peer interactions or activities, not necessarily routines. I would recommend renaming these routines in such a way or providing a more clear explanation in the introduction of how and why these interactions and activities are considered routines. I would also recommend dividing routines into categories of family and personal routines, as parents may have different views on these two categories and children may behave differently. Following this, I think abbreviations in the text would benefit from this (e.g., SUPR: personal routines, SUFR: family routines). Response: Thank you for your comment! We initially thought 'activity' was too general and chose 'routines' to emphasize the frequency and repetition of these activities. However, we now agree that 'activity' is more appropriate. We changed smartphone use during routines (SUR) to smartphone use during personal and relational activities (SUPRA). We specified more this while introducing the variable. For each SUPRA item we also specified whether it concerns personal or interpersonal/family activity. When reporting, we first reported all relational SUPRA and then all personal SUPRA items for higher clarity. #2) As I mentioned, some of the routines are related to interactions with family members or peers, and you look into how they are related to the SU. This can be seen as technoference and/or phubbing, and I think your paper would benefit from discussing your results in this context, at least for the routines that are related to the interaction with others. Response: Thank you for this suggestion. In the introduction, we clarified that the use of smartphones during interpersonal interactions has been previously studied under terms technoference/phubbing: “For instance, smartphone use (SU) during interpersonal interactions, which has been previously studied under terms “technoference” or “phubbing”, seems to be associated with lower relationship satisfaction between friends [9] as well as between romantic partners [10–13]. In the professional context, smartphone use during face-to-face negotiation led negotiators to appear less trustworthy and less professional [14]. Regarding family life, parental use during parent–child interactions (parental technoference) has been linked to decreased family satisfaction [15], suboptimal parent–child interactions, children’s externalising and internalising behavioural problems [12], and parental inattentiveness to children’s safety and emotional needs [16]. SU during interpersonal interactions has been predominantly studied among adults, but the occurrence of occasional (42%) or frequent (30%) distraction by smartphones has also been reported for adolescent children during face-to-face conversations with their parents [17].” #3) All in all, this paper is novel in the field and shows some new perspectives on children's SU, but would benefit from more clear construct definition and clarification. Response: We clarified more the process how SUPRA was constructed: “Fourteen personal, interpersonal and family activities during which a smartphone can be used were proposed. Eight activities were derived from the scientific literature cited above, which suggested that smartphone use during these activities might be harmful: - When your child is supposed to be focusing on something else (e.g., studying) [Personal activity] - At bedtime [Personal activity] - During a conversation with a peer (e.g., sibling, friend) [Relational activity] - When playing with a peer (e.g., sibling, friend) [Relational activity] - When you are saying something important to your child [Relational activity] - During a parent‒child conversation [Relational activity] - During a family mealtime [Relational activity] - During dinning in the restaurant [Relational activity] Six additional activities were included to achieve greater variety in both personal and family activities: - While waiting (e.g., at bus stop) [Personal activity] - In the bathroom (toilet) [Personal activity] - When visiting family friends [Relational activity] - When walking or hiking or being on trip together [Relational activity] - When attending a cultural performance (e.g., theatre, cinema, concert) [Relational activity] - When travelling/commuting together [Relational activity] We believe that this also helped us to better convey the message why to focus on smartphone use during personal and relational activities. #4) I would recommend not using abbreviations in the first sentence of the abstract. It would be better to write down the whole expression and put the abbreviation in the brackets (as is in the main text). Response: Thank you, changed accordingly. #5) When describing scales of parental warmth and control, use the full name of the scale when first mentioning it. Response: Thank you for your very appropriate suggestion. We have now included the full names of the scales when first mentioning the scales of parental warmth and control. #6) There are also several citing issues and errors I saw throughout the manuscript; read and revise these errors carefully. Response: Thank you, corrected. ----------- Reviewer #2: This study uses a sample of parents of children (aged 6-18) from Czech Republic to quantitatively describe parents’ perceptions of children’s use of smartphones during some routine events. The results reveal differences based on children’s age and some interesting associations with parents’ attitudes and parental warmth and control. Below are some of my suggestions for improvement: 1. In the abstract, it might be helpful to mention the age range and gender of both the parent sample and of their children. Response: Thank you. We have now included the age range and gender of both the parent sample and their children in the abstract. 2. Page 4, “Guidelines for parental regulation of specifically SU have been proposed by the Italian Paediatric Society,…”: What about from other organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics? Response: Thank you for this comment. We reported guidelines proposed by Bozzola et al. (2019), because they specifically mentioned smartphone use (and its possible collision with important personal activities). In contrast, the AAP guidelines (COUNCIL ON COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA, 2016), while more widely recognized, , were older and rather general. However, as the updated AAP guidelines from April 2024 (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2024) addressed specifically smartphone use, we added them to the text: “American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) regularly publishes recommendations for parents concerning the regulation of screen media in general, with the newest update in April 2024 [26]. AAP guidelines are probably the most widely recognized. Although they are relatively general concerning screen media use, some parts are specifically relevant to smartphone use, particularly the fourth component called 'Crowding Out,' which prompts parents to ask: 'What does media get in the way of?'. For parents of children with their own smartphone it is recommend to prompt children to restrain from device use during school, homework, bedtimes [31]. Similar guidelines have been proposed by the Italian Paediatric Society [1], recommending parents to restrict their children from using smartphones during mealtimes, bedtimes, and homework.” We are also aware that other societies (e.g., Canadian Paediatric Society, Institute de France Académie des Sciences, British Royal College for Pediatrics and Child Health) developed guidelines on screen media use, but as our focus was on smartphone use, which is only marginally mentioned or not addressed in these guidelines, we chose not to report on them in detail.. 3. “this relationship could not be fully attributed to the cross-sectional design of synthesised studies [27].” I have a hard time understanding this sentence. Please clarify more. Response: Thank you for your feedback. We have divided and rewritten the sentence for better clarity: “In older adolescents, restrictive parenting was positively and moderately associated with increased problematic online screen media use (the pooled correlation was found to be .25 [.05, .44]) [29]. This positive correlation between increased restrictive parenting and problematic media use could be partially explained by cross-sectional design of most studies, while it makes sense that when problematic use emerges, the restrictive activity of parents increases [29]. However, a longitudinal study showed that the association was present even when the analysis was controlled for previous problematic use – i.e., problematic use led to increased restrictions but the restrictions further promoted problematic use in the next wave [31].” 4. Page 5: This is a really long paragraph. Please consider breaking it down. Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have reviewed the paragraph and have broken it down into shorter sections for better readability. 5. Overall, in the introduction, there is a lack of in-depth literature review on children’s SUR and related phenomena, such as smartphone use during dinner time and during time spent with family. And there is a lack of literature review on parents’ perceptions of this. Response: We conducted a thorough literature search but identified only a small number of directly relevant sources. However, we provided a review on a closely related topic—parental views on screen media in general. In total, we have added 10 new sources. 6. A concerning part of the method is that the selection and definition of the 14 routines being studied are unclear and seem arbitrary. Please explain the scientific method/procedure for how these 14 routines were determined. Response: Some routines (or activities as we renamed according to reviewer’s 1 suggestion) were derived from scientific literature, particularly those personal, interpersonal, and family activities during which smartphone use might be harmful; namely bedtime, bathroom time, activities requiring attentional focus – learning, interacting with peers, parent-child interactions, family mealtimes. We built upon this knowledge to derive 8 activities: Personal activities (2 items) - When he or she is supposed to be focusing on something else (e.g., studying) - At bedtime Interpersonal activities (either peer-to-peer or parent-child) (4 items) - During a conversation with a peer (e.g., sibling, friend) - When playing with a peer (e.g., sibling, friend) - When you are saying something important to your child - During a parent‒child conversation Family activities (2 items) - During a family mealtime - During dinning in the restaurant Additionally, we included other relevant activities identified in a qualitative study (Hrabec et al., manuscript in preparation) recently conducted with parents, which focused on their children's smartphone use. Personal activities (2 more items) - While waiting (e.g., at bus stop) - In the bathroom (toilet) Family activities (4 more activities) - When visiting family friends - When walking or hiking or being on trip together - When attending a cultural performance (e.g., theatre, cinema, concert) - When travelling/commuting together We clarified this in the manuscript. Please refer to the Measure section for the detailed description. 7. Some of the routines are quite confusing. For example, what does "during a visit" mean/? Response: Thank you very much for pointing this out. The original Czech item in full was 'When visiting family friends,' meaning the situation where the whole family (or a parent with a child) meets family friends. This was the context we asked parents to report about. We have now included the entire item for clarity. 8. For between-group comparison, why choosing 10/11 to be the breaking point for children versus adolescents? Response: The choice of 10/11 as the breaking point between children and adolescents was based on the presumption that significant changes in screen media use occur around this age. This is also reflected in different guidelines for children younger than 10 years and older, such as those from the American Academy of Pediatrics (2024). We have clarified this in the Methods section when reporting the statistical analysis: Analyses were conducted separately for parents of children (6–10 years old) and parents of adolescents (11–18 years old). Two categories were formed based on the presumed differences in the screen media use of (and the recommended parenting strategies for) children younger and older than 10 years (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2024). 9. I think results from the regression model should drive the main result interpretation and discussion rather than the correlations. In the regression model, it is important that many potential confounding factors, including the sociodemographic characteristics of both parents and children, are controlled. Response: Thank you for this comment. We acknowledge the limits of relying on correlations while the more advanced statistical test (regression analysis) is available. On the other hand, the study was designed as explorative and the discussion was therefore driven mostly by descriptive results (e.g., the average dislike of parents for various SUPRA, the frequency of various SUPRA). However, we have taken your valuable comment into account and have reformulated the relevant paragraph in the discussion section to clarify clear that the parental predictors of SUPRA dislike were identified using linear regression analysis: “Less positive attitudes towards screen media, higher parental warmth and control and being female (mother) were all found to significantly contribute to high parental dislike of SUR even when analyzed together using regression analysis. Positive parental attitudes towards screen media have been previously studied mostly as a factor contributing to…” We also replaced the table with the results of regression analysis from the supplement to the main body (Table 4). In line with this comment, we have removed two paragraphs from the Results section. 1) Second saying that SUPRA was positively associated with daily smartphone time and negatively associated with parental warmth, with a positive correlation between SUPRA and PATS in children but a negative correlation in adolescents. 2) Second saying that Smartphone ownership was the only sociodemographic factor significantly associated with children's SUPRA, with notable differences in usage patterns between owners and nonowners, though no significant differences were found in the total number of routines involving frequent smartphone use. --------------- Additional changes that were based on / stemmed from the Reviewers’ comments in the manuscript Thus, we have adjusted the accordingly to the comments: - Abbreviation SUPRA (smartphone use during personal and relational activities) is now being used throughout the manuscript and in the Tables. - Title to better fit the content, using the term: relational activities. - Discussion sect Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308258.r002
9 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Gal Harpaz, Editor PONE-D-24-02065R1Parental views on their children’s smartphone use during personal and relational activitiesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gabrhelík, 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 Aug 23 2024 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. 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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, Gal Harpaz, Ph.D. 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. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors Thank you for resubmitting the article. It is evident that you have taken the comments of the reviewers into consideration, the article has undergone considerable improvement. I recommend referring to the specific comments given by reviewer 1 on the latest version, and returning it to the journal as soon as possible. I would love to see the latest version you submit. Best regards [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 ******** 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 ****** 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 thank the authors for the revised manuscript. The ideas of the manuscript are now more clear, but with this clarification of the main goal of the manuscript, I found the manuscript to be a bit confusing. In the abstract, you present your goals as follows: "This study aimed to (i) assess parental dislike (PD) of SUPRA, (ii) estimate SUPRA frequency, and (iii) identify predictors of PD of SUPRA" but on page 7, you put frequency of SUPRA as the last goal, and there is also confusion with the presentation of the result. It would benefit your paper, in terms of being concise and easier to read, to present your goals from a wider range (i.e., frequency of SUPRA) to a specific one (i.e., parental views/dislikes of SUPRA). So I recommend to authors that they think about rearranging the goals of the manuscript in such a way as to get a clearer picture of their study and study goals. Following that, the discussion of the paper lacks a theoretical explanation of the obtained results. For example, in the beginning of the discussion, you start with "The most negatively perceived was SU during two relational activities: when attending a cultural performance and when a parent is trying to say something important to their child. And additionally, SU during two personal activities: during bedtime and when a child is supposed to focus on something else, such as studying. In contrast, parents were generally okay with two SUPRA: (during waiting and during travelling/commuting), suggesting that SU during these activities may not be seen as intrusive by most parents." However, I haven't seen, throughout the discussion, any explanation as to why you think you got these results. For relational activities, it could be that parents perceive these activities as a chance to bond with children or spend quality time together, and for personal activities, parents may think about the consequences for a child's development, well-being, school achievement, etc. I am certain that there are some theoretical explanations for these and other results you obtained, so I encourage you to include them in your manuscript, as it would give more support to your findings. I have some other comments and suggestions: - I recommend including some keywords that reflect your focus on personal and relational activities and maybe excluding the "family" keyword. - On page 4, in the sentence "This may be due to perceived differences in the purposes of technology use, while daughters are believed to use it predominantly for social networking and sons for gaming [27]" it seems that the word "while" should be exchanged with the word "where". - On pages 5 and 6, you mention problematic screen media use, but you never define this term. - Descriptions of Parental warmth and Parental control are missing the used measurement scale. - "Characteristics" should be included in the method under the Participants section. - Before the results of the regression analysis, put a heading, such as "Predictors of Parental Dislike of SUPRA" or something similar. - Have you controlled for other sociodemographic variables in the regression model? Whether the answer is yes or no, you should clarify this in the results (under the regression table), i.e., explain why you have or haven't included other variables. Overall, the paper shows great improvement after the revision, and I thank the authors for considering the previous comments. The paper describes something still relatively unknown in the literature, and as such, it would benefit from a more theoretical background. Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed the reviewers’ comments pretty well. Thank you for being so collaborative. I think the paper has become stronger. ****** 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 ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308258.r003
Revision 2
18 Jul 2024 Author Response Reviewer #1: I thank the authors for the revised manuscript. The ideas of the manuscript are now more clear, but with this clarification of the main goal of the manuscript, I found the manuscript to be a bit confusing. In the abstract, you present your goals as follows: "This study aimed to (i) assess parental dislike (PD) of SUPRA, (ii) estimate SUPRA frequency, and (iii) identify predictors of PD of SUPRA" but on page 7, you put frequency of SUPRA as the last goal, and there is also confusion with the presentation of the result. It would benefit your paper, in terms of being concise and easier to read, to present your goals from a wider range (i.e., frequency of SUPRA) to a specific one (i.e., parental views/dislikes of SUPRA). So I recommend to authors that they think about rearranging the goals of the manuscript in such a way as to get a clearer picture of their study and study goals. Response: Thank you for raising this point. We have rearranged the aims in the Abstract as suggested – i.e., from (i) SUPRA frequency to (ii) parental dislike of SUPRA magnitude and (iii) its predictors. We rearranged methods, results and discussion accordingly to mirror this logic. Reviewer #1: Following that, the discussion of the paper lacks a theoretical explanation of the obtained results. For example, in the beginning of the discussion, you start with "The most negatively perceived was SU during two relational activities: when attending a cultural performance and when a parent is trying to say something important to their child. And additionally, SU during two personal activities: during bedtime and when a child is supposed to focus on something else, such as studying. In contrast, parents were generally okay with two SUPRA: (during waiting and during travelling/commuting), suggesting that SU during these activities may not be seen as intrusive by most parents." However, I haven't seen, throughout the discussion, any explanation as to why you think you got these results. For relational activities, it could be that parents perceive these activities as a chance to bond with children or spend quality time together, and for personal activities, parents may think about the consequences for a child's development, well-being, school achievement, etc. I am certain that there are some theoretical explanations for these and other results you obtained, so I encourage you to include them in your manuscript, as it would give more support to your findings. Response: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Given that we have reorganized the order in which we presented aims and reported results, we also reorganized discussion, starting with frequency of SUPRA. Each paragraph on frequency of SUPRA was then supplied with the results on parental dislike of this particular SUPRA, which (as we believe) improved the overall readability of discussion. We included additional sources to better discuss the high dislike of parents for most SUPRA (in total, six new sources on parental attitudes toward screen media were added, mostly reports of qualitative studies). We believe that our discussion of the results has been significantly improved. Reviewer #1: I have some other comments and suggestions: - I recommend including some keywords that reflect your focus on personal and relational activities and maybe excluding the "family" keyword. Response: Thank you, we added “smartphone use during personal activities” and “technoference” and “phubbing” as keywords for smartphone use during relational activites Reviewer #1: - On page 4, in the sentence "This may be due to perceived differences in the purposes of technology use, while daughters are believed to use it predominantly for social networking and sons for gaming [27]" it seems that the word "while" should be exchanged with the word "where". Response: Done Reviewer #1: - On pages 5 and 6, you mention problematic screen media use, but you never define this term. Response: Done (“...problematic screen media use [33–35], which can be defined as excessive media engagement with impaired control over use and with negative consequences in major areas of life functioning [36]“) Reviewer #1: - Descriptions of Parental warmth and Parental control are missing the used measurement scale. Response: Thank you, added. Reviewer #1: - "Characteristics" should be included in the method under the Participants section. Response: Included, thank you. Reviewer #1: - Before the results of the regression analysis, put a heading, such as "Predictors of Parental Dislike of SUPRA" or something similar. Response: Done accordingly. Reviewer #1: - Have you controlled for other sociodemographic variables in the regression model? Whether the answer is yes or no, you should clarify this in the results (under the regression table), i.e., explain why you have or haven't included other variables. Response: We added the information into Methods (“These predictors were selected based on whether they were found to be significantly associated with PD of SUPRA, i.e., on previous step.”) and also when reporting the results: “Using the principle of parsimony, we included only variables significantly associated with the PD of SUPRA in the model.” Reviewer #1: Overall, the paper shows great improvement after the revision, and I thank the authors for considering the previous comments. The paper describes something still relatively unknown in the literature, and as such, it would benefit from a more theoretical background. Response: The literature issue has been addressed. Thank you for your time invested in our work. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PlosISU_Revision2_Response2reviews_fin.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308258.r004
22 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Gal Harpaz, Editor Parental views on their children’s smartphone use during personal and relational activities PONE-D-24-02065R2 Dear Dr. Gabrhelík, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Gal Harpaz, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308258.r005
Formally Accepted
26 Jul 2024 Acceptance Letter - Gal Harpaz, Editor PONE-D-24-02065R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gabrhelík, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Gal Harpaz Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0308258.r006

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