Digital boundaries: A study on WeChat parent-child relationships among Chinese college students and their association with family factors

Zhao Feng; Chun-Mei Hu; Ling-Ling He

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0311494

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 31, 2024
28 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Farooq Ahmed, Editor PONE-D-24-28753Boundaries with Parents: A Study of Chinese College Students' Responses to Parental WeChat Friend Requests and Its Implications on Parent-Child RelationshipsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hu, 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 paper needs a revision under the light of reviewers' comments ad suggestions.============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 12 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. 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, Farooq Ahmed, PhD 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 requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. 3. 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. 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 was well-written and included rigorous statistical analysis. Authors highlighted the critical matter of the digital world concerning the parent-child relationship. Upon reviewing this paper, I recommend incorporating the following changes by the scholar/author/researcher. These changes have also been highlighted separately in the paper. The paper has the potential for publication, considering the incorporation of significant changes. 1. Your study represents the responses of only one small area of China, i.e., Chengdu. While selecting only one university, it cannot be generalized to the whole of China as the title mention. You can justify it in methods. 2. A minor proofreading is required (mistakes are mentioned in attached paper). 3. An empirical research needs a hypothesis. I would suggest adding hypotheses in your introduction. 4. References should be in Vancouver style. Follow the guidelines of the Journal. Reviewer #2: 1) The manuscript mentions that all participants were over 18 years of age but fails to provide a more detailed age range for the participants. I recommend that the authors provide a clear and specific age range for the participants in the manuscript in abstract, method section (under heading of participant’s selection) and results. This should include the minimum and maximum ages and the mean or median age if possible. Additionally, discussing the distribution of participants across different age groups just like other demographics would offer valuable context for interpreting the findings. Including this information will enhance the rigor of the study and provide a more nuanced understanding of the results, allowing for better comparisons with existing literature. 2) I recommend the authors explicitly identify and articulate the specific type (s) of research gap(s) in the literature review. This will clarify the study's contribution and enhance its scholarly impact and relevance. 3) The manuscript does not explicitly describe the research design, making it difficult to understand the overall approach taken to conduct the study. Without this clarity, it is challenging to assess the appropriateness of the methods used and the validity of the findings. 4) The insufficient theoretical and conceptual framework diminishes the clarity of the research. Incorporating relevant, well-established theories is essential to strengthen the study's foundation and academic significance 5) While the research questions are provided, the absence of clearly defined research objectives and hypotheses is a significant oversight. Without these, the study lacks direction and focus, making it difficult to assess the alignment of the research with its theoretical framework and identified gap. I strongly recommend formulating specific objectives and hypotheses to guide the study’s methodology and analysis, ensuring a more coherent and robust research design. 6) Explain how the sampling method (e.g., convenience sampling) aligns with the research design and objectives. The use of convenience sampling in this study introduces potential biases and limits generalizability, as the sample may not represent the broader population of college students (collected through one university of a specific region i.e. Chengdu). Alternative methods like stratified random or cluster sampling would enhance validity. If convenience sampling is necessary, the authors should acknowledge its limitations and discuss how they may affect the study's findings. It is important to provide a clear rationale for this choice in the manuscript. 7) The manuscript inadequately explains how the analytical methods specifically address the research questions (RQ1, RQ2, & RQ3) leading to uncertainty about the study's validity. Further, discussion section also lacks the effective validation of these three research questions introduced earlier, leading to a disconnect between the proposed questions and findings of study. It is suggested to integrate and address these questions in the discussion to ensure aligned and well-supported conclusions. ****** 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: Shagufta Hamid Ali Reviewer #2: Yes: Prof. Dr. Muhammad Saleem ******** [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: Manuscript222.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311494.r001
Revision 1
11 Sep 2024 Author Response Thank you to the reviewers for their valuable feedback. We have carefully reviewed and considered the comments, and have revised the paper accordingly. Below are our responses to each comment. Reviewer #1: The paper was well-written and included rigorous statistical analysis. Authors highlighted the critical matter of the digital world concerning the parent-child relationship. Upon reviewing this paper, I recommend incorporating the following changes by the scholar/author/researcher. These changes have also been highlighted separately in the paper. The paper has the potential for publication, considering the incorporation of significant changes. 1.Your study represents the responses of only one small area of China, i.e., Chengdu. While selecting only one university, it cannot be generalized to the whole of China as the title mention. You can justify it in methods. Authors Response: There is a clerical error here, and we actually covered more than just one colleges in Chengdu.We have made revision in methods as：Convenience sampling was employed to select 6159 freshmen to junior students to participate in the questionnaire survey at colleges in Chengdu, which is a representative core city in western China. Chengdu, as the central city in western China, attracts students from across the country, making its colleges a microcosm of diverse regional backgrounds. Therefore, we considered Chengdu a representative research location for exploring the attitudes and behaviors of Chinese college students. 2.A minor proofreading is required (mistakes are mentioned in attached paper). Authors Response: The corrections have been made in response to the annotations in the attachment. 3.An empirical research needs a hypothesis. I would suggest adding hypotheses in your introduction. Authors Response: 4 hypotheses have been added in introduction part: Hypothesis 1 (H1): Chinese college students maintain a positive WeChat parent-child relationship. Hypothesis 2 (H2): Family function satisfaction will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 3 (H3): Parental management will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 4 (H4): Family conflict will negatively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. 4. References should be in Vancouver style. Follow the guidelines of the Journal. Authors Response: References have been changed to Vancouver style. Reviewer #2: 1)The manuscript mentions that all participants were over 18 years of age but fails to provide a more detailed age range for the participants. I recommend that the authors provide a clear and specific age range for the participants in the manuscript in abstract, method section (under heading of participant’s selection) and results. This should include the minimum and maximum ages and the mean or median age if possible. Additionally, discussing the distribution of participants across different age groups just like other demographics would offer valuable context for interpreting the findings. Including this information will enhance the rigor of the study and provide a more nuanced understanding of the results, allowing for better comparisons with existing literature. Authors Response: we have provided a more detailed age range for the participants in the manuscript:The age range is 18-25 years. Specifically, there are 2,143 individuals aged 18 (34.8%), 2,459 individuals aged 19 (39.9%), and 1,557 individuals aged 20-25 (25.3%) (since the number of individuals aged 21-25 is relatively small, they have been combined into the 20-25 age group). These changes have been reflected in the abstract, method section (under the heading of participant selection), and results(table 2) as suggested. 2) I recommend the authors explicitly identify and articulate the specific type (s) of research gap(s) in the literature review. This will clarify the study's contribution and enhance its scholarly impact and relevance. Authors Response: we have clarified the specific research gap: currently, there is a scarcity of quantitative research focusing on the concept of WeChat-based parent-child relationships. Our study aims to address this gap by providing empirical data and analysis in this under-explored area. We believe that this contribution will enhance the scholarly understanding of parent-child dynamics in the context of new media platforms like WeChat. 2)The manuscript does not explicitly describe the research design, making it difficult to understand the overall approach taken to conduct the study. Without this clarity, it is challenging to assess the appropriateness of the methods used and the validity of the findings. Authors Response: We have added research design in Method section:This study employs a cross-sectional design. A questionnaire survey is used, which consists of two parts. The first part covers demographic variables, including age, gender, grade level, hometown, major, father's education level, mother's education level, and parental marital status. The second part includes the survey instruments: a questionnaire on response and attitudes towards parents' WeChat friend requests, a family function satisfaction scale, a parental management scale, and a family conflict scale. Chi-square test was employed to assess the relationship between categorical variables 3)The insufficient theoretical and conceptual framework diminishes the clarity of the research. Incorporating relevant, well-established theories is essential to strengthen the study's foundation and academic significance Authors Response: We applied the theoretical framework of Communication Privacy Management (CPM), specifically focusing on the concepts of privacy ownership, privacy control, and privacy turbulence, to explain college students' responses and attitudes toward their parents' WeChat friend requests, as well as their decisions to block or not block their parents from viewing their WeChat Moments. Based on this framework, we developed four research hypotheses. 5) While the research questions are provided, the absence of clearly defined research objectives and hypotheses is a significant oversight. Without these, the study lacks direction and focus, making it difficult to assess the alignment of the research with its theoretical framework and identified gap. I strongly recommend formulating specific objectives and hypotheses to guide the study’s methodology and analysis, ensuring a more coherent and robust research design. Authors Response: 4 hypotheses have been added in introduction part: Hypothesis 1 (H1): Chinese college students maintain a positive WeChat parent-child relationship. Hypothesis 2 (H2): Family function satisfaction will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 3 (H3): Parental management will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 4 (H4): Family conflict will negatively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. 6) Explain how the sampling method (e.g., convenience sampling) aligns with the research design and objectives. The use of convenience sampling in this study introduces potential biases and limits generalizability, as the sample may not represent the broader population of college students (collected through one university of a specific region i.e. Chengdu). Alternative methods like stratified random or cluster sampling would enhance validity. If convenience sampling is necessary, the authors should acknowledge its limitations and discuss how they may affect the study's findings. It is important to provide a clear rationale for this choice in the manuscript. Authors Response: We have acknowledge the limitations of convenience sampling in the section of conclusion and limitations as :this study employed convenience sampling, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Future research will expand the sampling scope by selecting participants from representative cities across different economic levels and regions in China. Additionally, future studies will incorporate factors such as personality traits, levels of privacy management, and social media dependency to develop a more comprehensive and robust research framework. 7) The manuscript inadequately explains how the analytical methods specifically address the research questions (RQ1, RQ2, & RQ3) leading to uncertainty about the study's validity. Further, discussion section also lacks the effective validation of these three research questions introduced earlier, leading to a disconnect between the proposed questions and findings of study. It is suggested to integrate and address these questions in the discussion to ensure aligned and well-supported conclusions. Authors Response: we have removed the original research questions (RQ1, RQ2, & RQ3) and replaced them with four research hypotheses. These hypotheses have been thoroughly discussed and validated in the discussion section, ensuring better alignment between the proposed ideas and the study’s findings. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311494.r002
13 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Farooq Ahmed, Editor PONE-D-24-28753R1Digital Boundaries: A Study on WeChat Parent-Child Relationships Among Chinese College Students and Their Association with Family FactorsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hu, 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. Dear authors, Thanks you for revising the manuscript according to reviewers' comments. However, references are not according to journal requirement. Please revise the references according to guidelines. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-references Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 28 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. 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, Farooq Ahmed, PhD 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.] [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.0311494.r003
Revision 2
18 Sep 2024 Author Response Thank you to the reviewers for their valuable feedback. We have carefully reviewed and considered the comments, and have revised the paper accordingly. Below are our responses to each comment. Reviewer #1: The paper was well-written and included rigorous statistical analysis. Authors highlighted the critical matter of the digital world concerning the parent-child relationship. Upon reviewing this paper, I recommend incorporating the following changes by the scholar/author/researcher. These changes have also been highlighted separately in the paper. The paper has the potential for publication, considering the incorporation of significant changes. 1.Your study represents the responses of only one small area of China, i.e., Chengdu. While selecting only one university, it cannot be generalized to the whole of China as the title mention. You can justify it in methods. Authors Response: There is a clerical error here, and we actually covered more than just one colleges in Chengdu.We have made revision in methods as：Convenience sampling was employed to select 6159 freshmen to junior students to participate in the questionnaire survey at colleges in Chengdu, which is a representative core city in western China. Chengdu, as the central city in western China, attracts students from across the country, making its colleges a microcosm of diverse regional backgrounds. Therefore, we considered Chengdu a representative research location for exploring the attitudes and behaviors of Chinese college students. 2.A minor proofreading is required (mistakes are mentioned in attached paper). Authors Response: The corrections have been made in response to the annotations in the attachment. 3.An empirical research needs a hypothesis. I would suggest adding hypotheses in your introduction. Authors Response: 4 hypotheses have been added in introduction part: Hypothesis 1 (H1): Chinese college students maintain a positive WeChat parent-child relationship. Hypothesis 2 (H2): Family function satisfaction will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 3 (H3): Parental management will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 4 (H4): Family conflict will negatively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. 4. References should be in Vancouver style. Follow the guidelines of the Journal. Authors Response: References have been changed to Vancouver style. The References have been revised by following the guidelines of the journal. Reviewer #2: 1)The manuscript mentions that all participants were over 18 years of age but fails to provide a more detailed age range for the participants. I recommend that the authors provide a clear and specific age range for the participants in the manuscript in abstract, method section (under heading of participant’s selection) and results. This should include the minimum and maximum ages and the mean or median age if possible. Additionally, discussing the distribution of participants across different age groups just like other demographics would offer valuable context for interpreting the findings. Including this information will enhance the rigor of the study and provide a more nuanced understanding of the results, allowing for better comparisons with existing literature. Authors Response: we have provided a more detailed age range for the participants in the manuscript:The age range is 18-25 years. Specifically, there are 2,143 individuals aged 18 (34.8%), 2,459 individuals aged 19 (39.9%), and 1,557 individuals aged 20-25 (25.3%) (since the number of individuals aged 21-25 is relatively small, they have been combined into the 20-25 age group). These changes have been reflected in the abstract, method section (under the heading of participant selection), and results(table 2) as suggested. 2) I recommend the authors explicitly identify and articulate the specific type (s) of research gap(s) in the literature review. This will clarify the study's contribution and enhance its scholarly impact and relevance. Authors Response: we have clarified the specific research gap: currently, there is a scarcity of quantitative research focusing on the concept of WeChat-based parent-child relationships. Our study aims to address this gap by providing empirical data and analysis in this under-explored area. We believe that this contribution will enhance the scholarly understanding of parent-child dynamics in the context of new media platforms like WeChat. 2)The manuscript does not explicitly describe the research design, making it difficult to understand the overall approach taken to conduct the study. Without this clarity, it is challenging to assess the appropriateness of the methods used and the validity of the findings. Authors Response: We have added research design in Method section:This study employs a cross-sectional design. A questionnaire survey is used, which consists of two parts. The first part covers demographic variables, including age, gender, grade level, hometown, major, father's education level, mother's education level, and parental marital status. The second part includes the survey instruments: a questionnaire on response and attitudes towards parents' WeChat friend requests, a family function satisfaction scale, a parental management scale, and a family conflict scale. Chi-square test was employed to assess the relationship between categorical variables 3)The insufficient theoretical and conceptual framework diminishes the clarity of the research. Incorporating relevant, well-established theories is essential to strengthen the study's foundation and academic significance Authors Response: We applied the theoretical framework of Communication Privacy Management (CPM), specifically focusing on the concepts of privacy ownership, privacy control, and privacy turbulence, to explain college students' responses and attitudes toward their parents' WeChat friend requests, as well as their decisions to block or not block their parents from viewing their WeChat Moments. Based on this framework, we developed four research hypotheses. 5) While the research questions are provided, the absence of clearly defined research objectives and hypotheses is a significant oversight. Without these, the study lacks direction and focus, making it difficult to assess the alignment of the research with its theoretical framework and identified gap. I strongly recommend formulating specific objectives and hypotheses to guide the study’s methodology and analysis, ensuring a more coherent and robust research design. Authors Response: 4 hypotheses have been added in introduction part: Hypothesis 1 (H1): Chinese college students maintain a positive WeChat parent-child relationship. Hypothesis 2 (H2): Family function satisfaction will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 3 (H3): Parental management will positively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. Hypothesis 4 (H4): Family conflict will negatively influence college students' WeChat parent-child relationships. 6) Explain how the sampling method (e.g., convenience sampling) aligns with the research design and objectives. The use of convenience sampling in this study introduces potential biases and limits generalizability, as the sample may not represent the broader population of college students (collected through one university of a specific region i.e. Chengdu). Alternative methods like stratified random or cluster sampling would enhance validity. If convenience sampling is necessary, the authors should acknowledge its limitations and discuss how they may affect the study's findings. It is important to provide a clear rationale for this choice in the manuscript. Authors Response: We have acknowledge the limitations of convenience sampling in the section of conclusion and limitations as :this study employed convenience sampling, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Future research will expand the sampling scope by selecting participants from representative cities across different economic levels and regions in China. Additionally, future studies will incorporate factors such as personality traits, levels of privacy management, and social media dependency to develop a more comprehensive and robust research framework. 7) The manuscript inadequately explains how the analytical methods specifically address the research questions (RQ1, RQ2, & RQ3) leading to uncertainty about the study's validity. Further, discussion section also lacks the effective validation of these three research questions introduced earlier, leading to a disconnect between the proposed questions and findings of study. It is suggested to integrate and address these questions in the discussion to ensure aligned and well-supported conclusions. Authors Response: we have removed the original research questions (RQ1, RQ2, & RQ3) and replaced them with four research hypotheses. These hypotheses have been thoroughly discussed and validated in the discussion section, ensuring better alignment between the proposed ideas and the study’s findings. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311494.r004
20 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Farooq Ahmed, Editor Digital Boundaries: A Study on WeChat Parent-Child Relationships Among Chinese College Students and Their Association with Family Factors PONE-D-24-28753R2 Dear Dr.Chun-mei Hu, 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, Farooq Ahmed, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311494.r005
Formally Accepted
16 Oct 2024 Acceptance Letter - Farooq Ahmed, Editor PONE-D-24-28753R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hu, 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. Farooq Ahmed Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311494.r006

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