Effectiveness of brief mindfulness intervention for college students’ problematic smartphone use: The mediating role of self-control

Fengbo Liu; Zhongqiu Zhang; Shuqiang Liu; Zhantao Feng

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279621

. 2022 Dec 22;17(12):e0279621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621

Effectiveness of brief mindfulness intervention for college students’ problematic smartphone use: The mediating role of self-control

Fengbo Liu ^1,^*, Zhongqiu Zhang ², Shuqiang Liu ³, Zhantao Feng ⁴

Editor: Hirokazu Taniguchi⁵

PMCID: PMC9778502 PMID: 36548308

Abstract

Background

Mainland China has the most smartphone users worldwide, especially among college students, while mindfulness intervention can significantly alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use. We examined the effects of a brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use and investigated if this effect is mediated by self-control.

Methods

Participants were recruited randomly from a university in Beijing of China. Forty-four college students were assigned to a mindfulness group or a control group. The mindfulness group took part in a brief (30 min) single-session mindfulness intervention. The control group was instructed to listen to a neutral news audio recording for the same duration (30 min). The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale, and Self-control Scale were used to measure state mindfulness, problematic smartphone use, and self-control of college students at pre-intervention and post-intervention, respectively.

Results

Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that the mindfulness group had significant improvements in state mindfulness (p = .049) and self-control (p = .012), and had significant alleviation in problematic smartphone use (p < .001) at post-intervention. In the regression model, self-control had a mediating effect between mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use (95% CI [0.490, 7.216]).

Conclusions

A brief single-session mindfulness intervention can alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use and increase the level of state mindfulness and self-control compared to the control group. Self-control can completely mediate the efficacy of the mindfulness intervention in reducing problematic smartphone use.

1 Introduction

Smartphones are multipurpose devices in modern life which provide substantial convenience, but problematic smartphone use is becoming a serious problem and is increasingly prevalent worldwide [1]. According to data from recent surveys, 39%~44% of India adolescents tend to have problematic cell phone usage [2]. A large UK cross-sectional study found that 39% of young adults reported smartphone addiction [3], whereas a study in America reported that 25% of people had a smartphone addiction problem [4]. Because of its extremely large population base, Mainland China has the most smartphone users worldwide, especially college students [5].

Although the smartphone brings convenience to people’s daily lives, it is also associated in certain cases with patterns of addictive usage involving negative outcomes. A large number of studies have introduced the term "smartphone addiction" based on similarities in symptoms displayed by excessive smartphone users and substance abusers [6]. For example, problematic use of smartphones can cause physical and mental health symptoms (e.g., decline in academic performance [7], interpersonal communication barriers [8], even threaten their life safety [9]) for college students. Therefore, how to effectively prevent and intervene with problematic smartphone use among college students has become an important research topic now.

Both theory and practice show that psychotherapy is effective in alleviating the level of problematic smartphone use among college students [10]. Psychotherapy is defined as the treatment of mental health symptoms or disorders or problems of living, and/or facilitation of personal growth by psychological means [11]. Psychotherapy, with or without pharmacologic therapy, is effective for the treatment of mental health symptoms and disorders [12]. Individual psychotherapy, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), is efficacious for treating problematic smartphone use in the general population [13].

The current emerging CBT is represented by "mindfulness training". Mindfulness means that the individual keeps his attention on purpose and does not make judgments (nonjudgement) in the present moment, and to be aware of current events [14], that is, stay alert and focus on the present event at all times, and be ready to accept any possible situation without judgment [15]. Similarly, mindfulness training is based on acceptance, which is an intervention method for individuals to focus their attention on the present experience [16]. Studies have shown that mindfulness intervention can significantly alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use among college students. For example, Elhai recruited 261 college students for a repeated-measures web survey, and found that mindfulness was inversely associated with levels of problematic smartphone use [17]; Yang recruited 1258 students in China for a questionnaire survey, and found that the relationships between smartphone addiction and mental health symptoms were moderated by mindfulness, in which they were stronger for students with lower levels of mindfulness [18]; Lan recruited 70 university students with smartphone addiction, and they were divided into a control group (n = 29) and an intervention group (n = 41), which demonstrated that the group mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral intervention could significantly alleviate smartphone addiction [19].

Although previous studies have preliminarily confirmed the effect of mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use [19], its mediating mechanism has not been fully revealed. And most existing studies focused on the mediating effect of trait mindfulness [20], rather than the mediating mechanism of mindfulness intervention. Therefore, it is necessary to further supplement the mediating mechanism of mindfulness intervention on mobile phone addiction. After combing through previous studies, it is found that when discussing college students’ mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use, it is often associated with self-control ability. Self-control refers to the ability to surpass or change a person’s internal reactions, including the ability to consciously interrupt the flow of thought, change emotions, and suppress unwelcome impulsive thoughts and behaviors [21]. Previous studies indicated that mindfulness intervention can improve an individual’s self-control [22], and a brief mindfulness intervention is also effective [23], because the concept of mindfulness is not to react, not to judge, and to pay attention to the present. Mindfulness intervention requires individuals to maintain their attention on the awareness of current events and need to deal with distractions caused by irrelevant thoughts, which can be seen as self-control training, where self-control ability is repeatedly and continuously practiced and significantly improved.

Besides, previous studies indicated that self-control has a positive predictive effect on some positive behaviors [24], or a negative predictive effect on some negative behaviors (such as problematic smartphone use or internet addiction, etc.) [25]. According to the dual-systems model of self-control proposed by Hofmann, self-control includes two opposing systems: the impulse system and the self-control system [26]. In the face of impulsive desires, the self-control system guides individuals to conduct thoughtful evaluation and inhibition standards, and then take rational actions. This system has the ability to inhibit psychological and behavioral impulsive responses [27]. Therefore, when college students’ self-control ability improves, the alleviation of problematic smartphone use is more expected.

The majority of previous studies had focused on the effects of long-term mindfulness training on self-control and problematic smartphone use [28, 29], while a few intervention studies had explored the relationship between brief mindfulness training, self-control, and problematic smartphone use for college students; thus, the adoption of brief mindfulness training in this study is purposeful and fills a missing research gap. Clearly, there could be potential confounding factors arising from prolonged mindfulness interventions, such as improved interpersonal relationship [30], which makes it difficult for singling out mindfulness practice as the cause of improved problematic smartphone use. However, one-time brief intervention can avoid such problems. Thus, evidence of whether a brief mindfulness training affects the problematic smartphone use of college students reveals the effects more directly. Furthermore, some scholars highlighted the potential difficulty in getting college students to use mindfulness strategies effectively [31]. Long-term mindfulness training, for example, has been known to be easy for participants to drop out [32]. Currently, research evidence suggests the effectiveness of brief mindfulness training in eliciting positive outcomes, such as tolerance to negative affect [33]. The effects of such brief interventions led us to consider whether a brief mindfulness training would similarly improve college students’ self-control and problematic smartphone use.

Previous studies have examined the changes in problematic smartphone use and self-control before and after mindfulness intervention [28, 29]. However, the mediating mechanism by which mindfulness intervention improves problematic smartphone use has rarely been explored. In addition, our efforts in testing the effects of brief mindfulness training over a short duration of 30 minutes hopefully contribute to the development of a simple strategy that can be readily applied to college students without expectation for prolonged sitting meditation. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine the effects of brief mindfulness training on college students’ problematic smartphone use and its mediating mechanism. Based on the presented theoretical review we developed the following hypotheses: (1) brief mindfulness training can improve problematic smartphone use among college students; (2) brief mindfulness training can improve self-control among college students; (3) self-control plays a mediating role between brief mindfulness training and problematic smartphone use; that is, brief mindfulness training can improve college students’ problematic smartphone use through improving their self-control.

2 Methods

2.1 Participants

Ethics clearance was granted by the research ethics committee of the Beijing Sport University. All individuals were recruited online. Interested individuals were directed to an online screening questionnaire to determine eligibility. If individuals met inclusionary criteria, they were invited to participate in the study. Before the initiation of the study, written informed consent was provided to participants before inclusion and the confidentiality and anonymity of their participation were assured.

Lan reported a medium-to-large effect size of group mindfulness-based intervention for college students’ problematic smartphone use [19]. An a priori power analysis determined that we would need a total sample size of 48 participants to detect this effect size (G*power; Effect size f = .36, α = .05, 1 - β = .80, Corr among rep measures = .50). In this study, the participants included 48 college students (15 boys and 33 girls; age average = 18.2, SD = 1.5) from one college in Beijing of China. Participants were randomly separated into two groups: a mindfulness group and a control group. Due to time commitment, 22 of the 24 students in the mindfulness group (9 boys and 13 girls; age average = 18.6, SD = 1.0) and 22 of the 24 students in the control group (4 boys and 18 girls; age average = 17.8, SD = 1.8) completed the study.

2.2 Measures

Three instruments were used to assess college students’ state mindfulness, level of smartphone addiction, and self-control ability: the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI), Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale (MPATS), and Self-control Scale (SCS).

State mindfulness was measured using the Chinese version of FMI [34] developed in a recent study [35] with supporting evidence regarding the factorial validity of the measure in a Chinese population. The measure has 14 items (e.g., “I am willing to accept the current experience.”), and data from previous studies supported its factorial validity. Responses were made on 4-point Likert scale (1 = never; 4 = very often). This single-dimension scale produced satisfactory internal consistency during our assessments (α = .83).

Problematic smartphone use was measured using the Chinese version of MPATS [36]. Using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very rarely true; 5 = always true), participants rated 16 items from four dimensions, including withdrawal symptoms (e.g., "I feel uncomfortable if I don’t use my phone for a long time."), highlighting behavior (e.g., “In class, I can’t concentrate on listening because of phone calls or text messages.”), social comfort (e.g., “I would rather choose to chat on my phone than face to face communication.”), and mood change (e.g., “I am always afraid that my phone will turn off automatically.”). Their responses were summed to create smartphone addiction scores. There was acceptable internal consistency reliability of the MPATS across our assessments (α = .91).

Self-control was measured using the Chinese version of SCS [21] developed in a recent study [37] with supporting evidence regarding the factorial validity of the measure in a Chinese population. Using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very rarely true; 5 = always true), participants rated 19 items from five dimensions, including impulse control (e.g., "People would describe me as impulsive."), healthy habits (e.g., "It is difficult for me to break bad habits."), resist temptation (e.g., "I lose my temper too easily."), focus on work (e.g., "I can work effectively toward long-term goals."), and moderate entertainment (e.g., "I spend too much money.").Their responses were summed to create self-control scores. There was acceptable internal consistency reliability of the SCS across our assessments (α = .86).

2.3 Procedure

A 2×2 mixed factorial design was employed, with a group (mindfulness group vs. control group) as a between-subject factor, and time (pre-intervention vs. post-intervention) as a within-subject factor. All participants were tested individually. At baseline, each participant completed a brief demographic questionnaire to assess age, gender, and meditation experience. Afterward, each participant completed a self-report measure of mindfulness, problematic smartphone use, and self-control, and was then randomly assigned to one of the two groups.

Participants in the mindfulness group were seated in an empty classroom and were instructed to listen to a mindfulness training audio recording (30 minutes) [38], and complete the exercises outlined in the audio recording. The mindfulness training recording was recorded in advance by a mindfulness instructor who has more than 6 years of mindfulness intervention experience. The recording included 5-minute mindfulness breathing and 25-minute body scanning, which were traditional mindfulness exercises. Participants in the control group were instructed to listen to a neutral news audio recording for the same duration (30 minutes). Following the mindfulness or neutral recording, each participant completed a self-report measure of mindfulness, problematic smartphone use, and self-control.

2.4 Data analysis

Independent-sample t-tests were used to compare the demographic variables and the pre-intervention scores of mindfulness group and control group; Bivariate correlation was used to test the relationship between mindfulness, problematic smartphone use, and self-control; Two-way repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to test the effect of time (within-subject independent variable: levels = pre-intervention and post-intervention) and group (between-subject independent variable: levels = mindfulness group and control group) on mindfulness, problematic smartphone use, and self-control, respectively; The macro program PROCESS [39] of SPSS compiled by Hayes was used to test the mediating effect of self-control between mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use. The number of Bootstrap samples was 5000. Under the 95% confidence interval, post-intervention score of problematic smartphone use were used as the dependent variable, the group was used as the independent variable, and the score change of self-control (post-intervention minus pre-intervention) was used as the mediating variable. Since the post-intervention score of problematic smartphone use were affected by pre-intervention score, therefore, gender, age, and pre-intervention score of problematic smartphone use were all controlled as covariates.

3 Results

3.1 Description results and bivariate correlation

The final sample included 44 college students. From Table 1, it can be found that there was no significant difference in both age (t = 1.85, df = 42, p = .071) and gender (t = -1.67, df = 39.75, p = .103) between the two groups.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and independent sample t-test comparison of the demographic variables.

variables	mindfulness group (n = 22)	control group (n = 22)	t	df	p
age	18.64±0.95	17.82±1.84	1.85	42	0.071
gender	1.59±0.50	1.82±0.39	-1.67	39.75	0.103

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Note. For gender, 1 = male, 2 = female.

From Table 2, it can be found that in pre-intervention, the mindfulness level of college students was negatively correlated with smartphone addiction (r = —.30, p < .05), and was positively correlated with self-control (r = .51, p < .01), that is, the higher level of mindfulness, the lower level of problematic smartphone use, and the higher level of self-control; In post- intervention, the mindfulness level was positively correlated with self-control (r = .35, p < .01), that is, the higher level of mindfulness, the higher level of self-control. The correlation between different variables provided a prerequisite for the subsequent mediation effect test.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and correlation test of the study variables.

variables	M	SD	FMI	MPATS	SCS
gender	1.70	0.46
age	18.23	1.51
pre-intervention
FMI	37.75	6.29	-
MPATS	41.80	11.88	-0.30^*	-
SCS	56.86	9.49	0.51^**	-0.53^**	-
post-intervention
FMI	38.00	6.75	-
MPATS	38.55	12.38	-0.06	-
SCS	57.91	8.93	0.35^*	-0.46^**	-

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Note. M = Mean; SD = Standard Deviation;

*p < .05

**p < .01; Average score of each variable is presented.

3.2 Independent-sample t-tests results

It can be found that there was no significant difference in MPATS (t = .52, df = 42, p = .609 > .05) and SCS (t = -1.58, df = 42, p = .121 > .05) at pre-intervention between mindfulness group and control group, while there was significant difference in FMI (t = -2.94, df = 42, p = .005 < .05).

3.3 Two-way repeated measures ANOVA results

From Table 3, repeated measure ANOVA of mindfulness revealed a significant time by group interaction effect, F (1, 42) = 6.68, p = .013, η_p² = .137, and within-subject difference of mindfulness across time was not significant, F (1, 42) = 0.08, p = .775, η_p² = .002. Furthermore, between-group difference of mindfulness was not significant, F (1, 42) = 2.89, p = .097, η_p² = .064. Further simple effect analysis indicated that the mindfulness level of mindfulness group was significantly higher in post-intervention, as compared to that of pre-intervention (p = .049). See Fig 1.

Table 3. Summaries of two-way repeated-measures ANOVA comparison.

variables	within-subject						between-subject
	time			time× group			F	p	η _p ²
	F	p	η _p ²	F	p	η _p ²	F	p	η _p ²
FMI	0.08	0.775	0.002	6.68	0.013	0.137	2.89	0.097	0.064
MPATS	8.54	0.006	0.169	11.10	0.002	0.209	0.28	0.599	0.007
SCS	0.88	0.354	0.020	7.68	0.008	0.155	0.29	0.592	0.007

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Note. η _p² = partial η².

Repeated measure ANOVA of problematic smartphone use revealed a significant time by group interaction effect, F (1, 42) = 11.10, p = .002, η_p² = .209, and within-subject difference of problematic smartphone use across time was significant, F (1, 42) = 8.54, p = .006, η_p² = .169. Furthermore, between-group difference of problematic smartphone use was not significant, F (1, 42) = .28, p = .599, η_p² = .007. Further simple effect analysis indicated that the problematic smartphone use level of mindfulness group was significantly lower in post-intervention, as compared to that of pre-intervention (p < .001). Hypothesis 1 was verified. See Fig 2.

Repeated measure ANOVA of self-control revealed a significant time by group interaction effect, F (1, 42) = 7.68, p = .008, η_p² = .155, and within-subject difference of self-control across time was not significant, F (1, 42) = 0.88, p = .354, η_p² = .020. Furthermore, between-group difference of self-control was not significant, F (1, 42) = .29, p = .592, η_p² = .007. Further simple effect analysis indicated that the self-control level of mindfulness group was significantly higher in post-intervention, as compared to that of pre-intervention (p = .012). Hypothesis 2 was verified. See Fig 3.

3.4 Mediating effect analysis results

From Table 4, it can be found that the total effect of the group on post-intervention MPATS was significant (t = .61, 95% CI [1.308, 10.266]); SCS change had a significant predictive effect on post-intervention MPATS (t = -5.44, 95% CI [-0.961, -0.440]). Further analysis found that after the mediating variable entered the equation, the indirect effect Bootstrap 95% CI [0.490, 7.216] did not contain 0, which indicated that self-control had a mediating effect between mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use; besides, the direct effect Bootstrap 95% CI [-0.700, 6.445] contained 0, which indicated that the influence of mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use was completely explained by the mediating effect of self-control, that is, self-control had a complete mediating effect between mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use. Hypothesis 3 was verified.

Table 4. Summaries of PROCESS mediating effect test.

dependent variable: post-intervention MPATS	coefficient/effect	boot se	95% CI LL	95% CI UL
independent variable:
sex	-0.12	1.80	-3.772	3.535
age	-0.22	0.62	-1.473	1.030
pre-intervention MPATS	0.97	0.07	0.826	1.118
ΔSCS	-0.70	0.13	-0.961	-0.440
direct effect	2.87	1.76	-0.700	6.445
indirect effect	2.91	1.64	0.490	7.216
total effect	5.78	2.21	1.308	10.266

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Note. CI = confidence interval; Group 1 = mindfulness group, group 2 = control group.

4 Discussion

Mindfulness intervention is a method related to the training of attention ability, which can promote the individuals’ self-control ability and make them live in the present moment [40]. More and more researchers choose to use brief single-session interventions instead of long-term interventions to examine the effects of mindfulness interventions [41]. However, a few studies have explored the effect of brief mindfulness interventions on problematic smartphone use prevention or its mediating mechanism. Thus, we examined the effects of a brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use and investigated whether this effect is mediated by self-control.

In general, this study found that brief mindfulness intervention can not only directly alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use among college students, but also alleviate it through improving their self-control ability. Results support all three hypotheses.

First, we predicted that a 30-min single-session mindfulness intervention would increase levels of state mindfulness, as measured by FMI, compared with the news recording. Our results yielded support for this hypothesis. On the one hand, FMI score at post-intervention were greater in the mindfulness intervention condition compared with pre-intervention, which is consistent with our prediction and provides additional support for previous studies that used a brief single-session mindfulness intervention to induce a state of mindfulness [39]. On the other hand, the interaction effect of time by the group was significant, and the simple effect analysis shows that, compared with the control group, the level of mindfulness of college students after a 30-minute training is significantly improved, that is, a brief mindfulness intervention can effectively improve an individual’s mindfulness level.

Secondly, we found that a brief mindfulness intervention would help to alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use among college students, that is, after a brief mindfulness intervention, college students can alleviate their craving and attention to addictions, thereby blocking the relationship between addictions and problematic use behaviors. This result validated the positive impact of a brief mindfulness intervention on negative events, again. Khanna proposed that problematic use behaviors were caused by a sense of emptiness which caused individuals to satisfy themselves through substances (e.g., alcohol, nicotine, or smartphones), which could be seen as emotional disorders because of "lacking mindfulness" [42]. After being intervened, most college students can treat smartphones objectively, and gradually remain unresponsive to their desire for smartphones. The specific manifestations are: spend less time on smartphones and the alleviation importance of smartphones to life, that is, the level of problematic smartphone use is weakened.

This study also found that a brief mindfulness intervention would improve the self-control ability of college students, that is, it could enhance the activity of the self-control system and avoid the influence of psychological and behavioral impulses, which is consistent with previous studies [22]. Friese analyzed from the perspective of self-depletion and found that a one-time brief mindfulness intervention can restore self-depletion, thereby improving self-control ability [23].The benefits of mindfulness are often conceptualized in terms of self-control [43]. In fact, individuals are required to maintain their attention on the present, and deal with distractions caused by other thoughts in the process of mindfulness training. Therefore, mindfulness training can also be regarded as self-control training for attention and concentration [44]. Individuals’ self-control is repeatedly involved and practiced in this process [45], so that their self-control ability is significantly improved. These explain the reason why a brief mindfulness intervention improves college students’ self-control.

Finally, we revealed the mechanism of a brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use among college students. We found that self-control played a completely mediating role in the process of brief mindfulness intervention alleviating the level of problematic smartphone use, that is, brief mindfulness interventions can not only directly alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use among college students, but also indirectly alleviate it through self-control. The proportional analysis of the direct and indirect effects showed that the indirect effect of a mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use was dominant, which accounted for 50.3% of the total effect. This result reveals the relationship between mindfulness intervention and problematic smartphone use from the perspective of non-judgment and non-reaction, which is more consistent with the reality of college students’ psychology and behavior and is also consistent with the "attention control" theory proposed by Diamond [46]. Brand proposed the interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model in 2016 [47], which aimed to describe the psychological and neurobiological processes underlying the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors. On this basis, Brand pointed out that problematic use behaviors were associated with diminished self-control ability [48]. In problematic use behaviors, such as problematic smartphone use, he proposed that a diminished level of self-control ability was a vulnerability factor for the problematic use behavior and acted as a mediating variable of the relationship between affective responses to certain triggering stimuli (e.g., negative moods) and decisions to engage in specific behaviors. In addition, situation-specific self-control (when being confronted with addiction-related stimuli) may decrease over time as a consequence of problematic use behaviors. Thus, self-control ability is regarded as the bridge between psychology and behavior. Mindfulness emphasizes the psychological characteristics of not judging the past and not worrying about the future [49]. If college students can be non-judgmental and non-reactive, they will pay more attention to current tasks and alleviate negative events, or they will be immersed in negative events and experiences. This explains why self-control completely mediated the influence of brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use.

Several limitations of the present study must be considered. First, although the indirect effect was significant, our sample size was relatively small, which might result in unstable estimation of the mediating effects. In addition, although the mediating effect of self-control was examined, we did not investigate whether there were potential mediating or moderating variables such as trait mindfulness, age or grade. In future research, the mediation effect should be further replicated using a larger sample size, and it should be analyzed whether the effect of brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use would be mediated or moderated by other variables.

5 Conclusion

In summary, the present study provided initial evidence supporting the application of a brief mindfulness intervention in problematic smartphone use and self-control for college students. Brief mindfulness interventions not only appeared to be adaptive to college students’ self-control, but it also seemed to alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use. More importantly, self-control played a mediating role in the process of mindfulness intervention alleviating the level of problematic smartphone use.

Supporting information

S1 Data

(SAV)

Click here for additional data file.^{(2KB, sav)}

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Beijing Sport University for providing the psychological laboratories and participants. Also, the authors thank Mr. Yu Song and Dr. Nan Zhang for data collection at the initial stage of this study.

Data Availability

The [DATA.sav] data used to support the findings of this study are included within the supplementary information file.

Funding Statement

This study was supported by a Doctor Research Fund (2022BSJJSK12) from Zhengzhou University of Light Industry. The funder provided support for the preparation and publication of this paper. It was also supported by Zhengzhou University of Light Industry for providing the psychological laboratories, and Beijing Sport University for providing the participants.

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PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r001

Decision Letter 0

Hirokazu Taniguchi

3 Aug 2021

PONE-D-21-19862

Effectiveness of Brief Mindfulness Intervention for College Students’ Smartphone Addiction: The mediating Role of Self-control

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fengbo,

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.

In this study, correlation analyses, t-tests and ANOVAs were conducted using the subscores as well as the total scores of MPATS and SCS, but the authors made no reference to the results of those subscores in Results and Discussion sections. Moreover, the authors did not use any of those subscores in a mediation analysis. Therefore, I recommend the authors to use only the total scores of MPATS and SCS as the problematic smartphone use score and the self-control ability score, respectively. In that case, the removal of the subscore results of MPATS and SCS from Table 1-3 is also needed. Besides, it would be better to list not only pre-intervention variables but also post-intervention variables and demographic variables (i.e., gender and age) in Table 1.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 17 2021 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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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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Hirokazu Taniguchi, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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 should indicate whether the recruitment is random.

2. Smartphone addiction is a worldwide problem, and it is better to mention the global trend of it in the introduction section.

3. "Psychotherapy is defined as the treatment of mental health symptoms or disorders or problems of living, and/or facilitation of personal growth by psychological means", the source should be provided here.

4. "Although previous studies have preliminarily confirmed the effect of a mindfulness intervention on smartphone addiction, its mechanism has not been fully revealed", more recent research is needed here to further clarify your conclusions. What are the existing mechanisms and what needs to be supplemented?

5. What are the research gaps and significance in your study? It should be stated separately and clearly.

6. Please use more accurate intervention terms, such as "at baseline" instead of "before the experiment proper".

7. Why is there no separate table reporting demographic information in the results section? You also need to clarify whether the demographic information has potential risk of bias.

8. You'd better check whether the statements in the background and discussion sections have sources. And please update your citations, citing the latest research results as much as possible.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. This manuscript examined associations between mindfulness, self-control, and smartphone addiction among Chinese college students. The strengths of this manuscript include a strong statistical approach, and a timely and interesting research topic. The manuscript is also generally well-written. I would suggest the authors consider the following comments to improve this manuscript's quality:

Abstract:

This sentence states, "We examined the effects of a brief mindfulness intervention on smartphone addiction and

investigated if this effect is moderated by self-control." However the authors undertook a mediation analysis. Please clarify.

Introduction:

I would argue the rationale for hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 are lacking. The authors suggest and credit prior research suggesting mindfulness intervention can alleviate smartphone addiction. Then, what does Hypothesis 1 add to the literature, beyond a replication in a new sample? Similarly, the authors state mindfulness interventions can improve self-control as part of their literature review, but their hypothesis suggests mindfulness training will improve self-control in the sample. Wouldn't we assume this already, based on what is stated we know? A clearer statement of what this study would add to the literature would help prove its worth.

Methods:

It appears Chronbach's alpha for the MPATS was .65 for the pre-intervention intervention assessment, representing poor internal consistency. Why do the authors think this is so?

Please state Chronbach's alpha for the SCS.

Is a sample size of 48 enough to detect a mediated effect? Even for a reported large effect size for mindfulness, this appears a low size to detect a complicated effect such as mediation. Was the power analysis undertaken with the mediation analysis in mind, specifically? And does g*power handle mediation? Clarification that the power is appropriate for mediation is warranted, as there is possibility of Type 1 error. The authors may find the following references useful:

Schoemann, A. M., Boulton, A. J., & Short, S. D. (2017). Determining power and sample size for simple and complex mediation models. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(4), 379-386.

Fritz, M. S., & MacKinnon, D. P. (2007). Required sample size to detect the mediated effect. Psychological science, 18(3), 233-239.

Discussion:

5th paragraph of the discussion mentions self-control in terms of inhibiting 'animal impulses' and 'deviant behavior,' which is out of scope of the current topic. Smartphone use is quite normalized, with many people self-reporting 'addiction' to their devices, suggesting this behavior is likely not entirely abnormal or 'deviant.' The authors would improve their work by fitting in their findings within more recent literature of addictive behaviors, such as below:

Brand, M., Wegmann, E., Stark, R., Müller, A., Wölfling, K., Robbins, T. W., & Potenza, M. N. (2019). The Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model for addictive behaviors: Update, generalization to addictive behaviors beyond internet-use disorders, and specification of the process character of addictive behaviors. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 104, 1-10.

Minor:

Some of the grammar and syntax throughout the paper, especially in the introduction section, could be improved. Some sentences read awkward to the reader.

The phrases of "smartphone addiction" or referencing smartphones as an addictive disorder could be rephrased to something like "problematic smartphone use,' given the debate in the field whether this behavior can be classified as a true 'addiction.'

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Timothy Regan

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PLoS One. 2022 Dec 22;17(12):e0279621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0

18 Oct 2021

Responds to the reviewer’s comments:

Response: It is really true as Reviewer said that we made no results of subscores in Results and Discussion sections because they were not the focus of our research. Thus, as you suggested, we have removed all subscore results in our paper.

Moreover, demographic variables were compared in table 1. Thus, as you suggested, we have listed pre-intervention variables, post-intervention variables and demographic variables in Table 2.

Reviewer 1:

1. The abstract should indicate whether the recruitment is random.

Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that we should indicate whether the recruitment is random, and now we have made correction in abstract according to your comments.

2. Smartphone addiction is a worldwide problem, and it is better to mention the global trend of it in the introduction section.

Response: Thank you for your comment. Now we have mentioned the global trend of smartphone addiction in the introduction section.

Response: We are very sorry for our negligence, and as you suggested, the source was provided here.

Response: We are very sorry for our negligence, and we have re-written this sentence. “Most existing studies focused on the mediating effect of trait mindfulness, rather than the mediating mechanism of mindfulness intervention. Therefore, it is necessary to further supplement the mediating mechanism of mindfulness training on mobile phone addiction”.

5. What are the research gaps and significance in your study? It should be stated separately and clearly.

Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that the research gaps and significance should be stated separately and clearly. Thus, now we have made a supplement of these sections and re-written our hypothesis in the end of the Introduction.

6. Please use more accurate intervention terms, such as "at baseline" instead of "before the experiment proper".

Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing, now we have replaced “before the experiment proper” with “at baseline”, and examined other mistakes.

7. Why is there no separate table reporting demographic information in the results section? You also need to clarify whether the demographic information has potential risk of bias.

Response: We are very sorry for our negligence, and the separate table reporting demographic information was showed at results section now. The demographic variables were also compared in table 1.

8. You'd better check whether the statements in the background and discussion sections have sources. And please update your citations, citing the latest research results as much as possible.

Response: Thank you for your comment. Now, all sources were provided in the background and discussion sections. We also updated our citations, and citing the latest studies as much as possible.

Reviewer 2:

Abstract:

This sentence states, "We examined the effects of a brief mindfulness intervention on smartphone addiction and investigated if this effect is moderated by self-control." However the authors undertook a mediation analysis. Please clarify.

Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing, now we have replaced “moderated” with “mediated” in abstract section.

Introduction:

Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that a clearer statement of what this study would add to the literature is needed. The majority of previous studies had focused on the effects of long-term mindfulness training on self-control and smartphone addiction, while a few intervention studies had explored the relationship between them for college students; thus, the adoption of brief mindfulness training in this study is purposeful and fills a missing research gap. Moreover, previous studies have examined the changes in smartphone addiction and self-control before and after mindfulness intervention. However, the mediating mechanism by which mindfulness training improves smartphone addiction has rarely been explored. Thus, now we have made a supplement of these sections and re-written our hypothesis in the end of the Introduction.

Methods:

It appears Chronbach's alpha for the MPATS was .65 for the pre-intervention intervention assessment, representing poor internal consistency. Why do the authors think this is so?

Response: Thank you for your comment. In our assessments, .65 was not the Chronbach's alpha for the MPATS, while it was the alpha score for a subscale of MPATS. As the Reviewer suggested, we have removed all subscore results in our paper. And the alpha for the MPATS was .91, which means that there was acceptable internal consistency reliability for MPATS.

Please state Chronbach's alpha for the SCS.

Response: We are very sorry for our negligence, and the Chronbach's alpha for the SCS has been supplemented now.

Schoemann, A. M., Boulton, A. J., & Short, S. D. (2017). Determining power and sample size for simple and complex mediation models. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(4), 379-386.

Fritz, M. S., & MacKinnon, D. P. (2007). Required sample size to detect the mediated effect. Psychological science, 18(3), 233-239.

Response: Thank you for your comment. As you said, G*power can’t handle mediation sample size. While in our study, we used G*power to only determine the sample size of brief mindfulness training on smartphone addiction.

Moreover, in the previous questionnaire survey research, the number of subjects in the mediation effect test needs to reach a large sample size. However, in experimental research, it is impossible to complete the intervention of a large sample size. Therefore, according to previous studies (Josefsson, T. et al. (2019). Effects of Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment (MAC) on Sport-Specific Dispositional Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, and Self-Rated Athletic Performance in a Multiple-Sport Population: an RCT Study. Mindfulness), we recruited 48 subjects in our research. The PROCESS was used to test the mediating effect of self-control between mindfulness intervention and smartphone addiction, The number of Bootstrap samples was 5000.

Discussion:

Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing, and thank you for your comment. We have re-written this part, which aims to explain more clearly about the mediating role of self-control.

Minor:

Some of the grammar and syntax throughout the paper, especially in the introduction section, could be improved. Some sentences read awkward to the reader.

Response: Thank you for your comment. We have examined the grammar and syntax throughout the paper, and re-written the most parts of introduction section in our paper.

Response: Thank you for your comment. As you suggested, it is debatable whether this behavior can be classified as a true 'addiction'. And the tool we use can only measure the tendency of smartphone addiction. Therefore, we have replaced “smartphone addiction” with “problematic smartphone use”.

Special thanks to you for all your good comments!

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper.

We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file.^{(204.8KB, docx)}

PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r003

Decision Letter 1

Hirokazu Taniguchi

31 Jan 2022

PONE-D-21-19862R1Effectiveness of Brief Mindfulness Intervention for College Students’ Problematic Smartphone Use: The mediating Role of Self-controlPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fengbo,

As both reviewers pointed out, if the authors did not carry out a power analysis to calculate the sample size necessary to achieve a specific level of power (1-β = 0.8) in their mediation model, they had better mention it for accuracy purposes. I understand the percentile bootstrap CI is more powerful than Sobel test, indicates less Type I error inflation in smaller samples (n < 100) when there is no indirect effect (ab is equal to zero), and provides better CI coverage than the bias-corrected bootstrap CI (cf. Hayes & Scharkow, 2013). As an aside, generally speaking, when sample size is small, statistical power (1-β) becomes low, and Type II error becomes high. Although the sample size was relatively small in this study, the indirect effect was significant in the percentile bootstrap CI. If necessary, the authors might be able to try a "post hoc" power analysis, for example, using Schoemann's (2017) application for Monte Carlo power analysis for mediation models. As the reviewer #3 suggested, Tables 3 and 4 are unnecessary because the results of the two-way repeated measures ANOVAs have been explained in the text and displayed in Figures 1-3. I think it would be better to use a figure rather than a table, that is Table 5, to present the results of the mediating effect analysis. Before converting Table 5 to a figure, I recommend the authors to check again whether the values of the direct, indirect, and total effects are correct in Table 5.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 17 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 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,

Hirokazu Taniguchi, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[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 #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: I would recommend stating the inclusion criteria.

Lan reported a medium-to-large effect size of the mindfulness effect for college students [19] - I recommend more clearly stating this effect. What is meant by mindfulness, i.e. trait, intervention, something else?

I would recommend stating the power analysis was not undertaken with the mediation effect in mind. The authors need to be careful in their wording, as their small sample size remains a limitation of the study.

Reviewer #3: have fully addressed the comment: not yet

technically sound: no, see my comment below

statistical analysis: no, see my comment below

data fully available: i can't find it, so 'no'

English: no. need proof-reading

specific comments:

line 65-66: the statement is odd. mindfulness intervention could increase one's trait mindfulness. so, if trait mindfulness is found negatively associated with problematic smartphone use. we could implement mindfulness-based intervention to increase one's trait mindfulness.

line 66-67"it is necessary to further supplement the mediating mechanism of mindfulness intervention on mobile phone addiction": 1)mediate or moderate? in the response to previous reviewer, the authors said it should 'moderate'. 2) seems that it is an interventional studies, the authors should look into the effect of mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone. I don't understand why such study design is for a research question about mediating effect. previous reviewers also asked similar question.

line 87-88" how to define long term training? no elaboration on why need to look into brief mindfulness training. I am not sure whether 'brief' =short duration, single modality or else.

line 91-94'Clearly, there could be potential confounding factors arising from prolonged mindfulness interventions, such as improved interpersonal relationship [30], which makes it difficult for singling out mindfulness practice as the cause of improved problematic smartphone use.': this argument is certainly not sound. 1) we have methodological ways to minimize potential confounder. 2) no definition of brief mindfulness intervention. it is certainly not a good justification to introduce 'brief' mindfulness training.

intervention: no evidence to support the design of the intervention - 30min audio-taped mindfulness.

the sample size calculation is for comparing difference but not for mediating analysis. 48 samples are certainly insufficient to do a mediating analysis with a rule of one IDV needs 15 samples. no justification is given in the section 'sample size' for the sample for mediating analysis.

With table 4, table 3 is not needed.

**********

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.

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Reviewer #2: Yes: Timothy Regan

Reviewer #3: No

PLoS One. 2022 Dec 22;17(12):e0279621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1

23 Oct 2022

Responds to the reviewer’s comments:

Response: Thank you for your comments. As previous studies showed, G*power can’t handle mediation sample size. While in experimental research, it is impossible to complete the intervention of a large sample size. Thus, we have mentioned it in limitation part for accuracy purposes.

Secondly, as reviewer #3 suggested, Tables 3 and 4 were deleted.

Finally, it may not be better to convert Table 5 into a figure, because the table showed 95% CI and other data, which were the key data for the mediating effect test. If necessary, a figure can be added on the basis of Table 5, but there may be suspicion of the duplication.

Reviewer 2:

I would recommend stating the inclusion criteria.

Response: Thank you for your comment. Lan reported a medium-to-large effect size of group mindfulness-based intervention for college students’ problematic smartphone use. Now we have made it more clearly.

Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that we need to be careful in our wording. Thus, now we have rewritten the limitation part in the end of the Discussion.

Reviewer 3:

specific comments:

Response: Thank you for your comment. As reviewer said, we could implement mindfulness-based intervention to increase one's trait mindfulness, and then, may reduce the problematic smartphone use. While at this point, the level of trait mindfulness is regarded as a mediating variable. But our study focused on the mediating effect of self-control. Thus, it can be further discussed in future study that whether the effect of brief mindfulness intervention on problematic smartphone use would be mediated by trait mindfulness, and now we have rewritten the limitation part in the end of the Discussion.

Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing. One of our purposes was to analyze the effect of mindfulness intervention on problematic phone use, while previous studies had shown that mindfulness intervention can significantly alleviate the level of problematic smartphone use. But, how this effect was produced need to be further explored, thus we further supplemented its mediating mechanism.

line 87-88" how to define long term training? no elaboration on why need to look into brief mindfulness training. I am not sure whether 'brief' =short duration, single modality or else.

Response: Thank you for your comment. There are many long-term intervention methods based on mindfulness, such as MBCT or MBSR, which are all 8-week long term training. In our study, brief means one-time (30 ~ 40 minutes each time). Previous studies provided evidence for this (Schumer, M. C., et al. Brief Mindfulness Training for Negative Affectivity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis).

Response: Thank you for your comments. As reviewer said, we have methodological ways to minimize the potential confounder, while there are still other potential confounders of prolonged interventions which can not be minimized, such as habit formation, et al., while these can be avoided by using brief training. We have put forward this point in the article.

intervention: no evidence to support the design of the intervention - 30min audio-taped mindfulness.

Response: We are very sorry for our negligence. In our study, brief intervention of 30 min audio-taped was used, and relevant references confirmed that one-term audio-taped intervention was effective, which have been added to the article.

Response: Thank you for your comment. As previous studies showed, G*power is for comparing difference but not for mediating analysis. However, the bootstrap method used in this study was effective, and previous studies have provided evidence for this. Moreover, in experimental research, it is impossible to complete the intervention of a large sample size. Thus, we have mentioned it in limitation part for accuracy purposes.

With table 4, table 3 is not needed.

Response: Thank you for your comment. As you suggested, we have deleted table 3 and table 4.

Special thanks to you for all your good comments!

We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r005

Decision Letter 2

Hirokazu Taniguchi

22 Nov 2022

PONE-D-21-19862R2Effectiveness of Brief Mindfulness Intervention for College Students’ Problematic Smartphone Use: The mediating Role of Self-controlPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Liu,

The authors should italicize statistical symbols and add the value of degrees of freedom. In the results of independent-sample t-tests, the p-value of FMI seems wrong. Table 3 does not include "group," one of the independent variables. The authors should insert a space between words or after commas in many sentences, such as L28, L180, L197, L311, L315, L317, and L318. It would be better to change "fourteen items" to "14 items" in L142 and "applied by" to "applied to" in L110.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 06 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.

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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'.
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Kind regards,

Hirokazu Taniguchi, Ph.D.

Section 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

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: I would recommend stating the mediation effect as more of a preliminary finding in need of further replication using a larger sample. When the sample size is this small, applying mediation is more of an 'exploratory' route.

I would also recommend stating what the participants actually did during the mindfulness exercise? Activities, meditation, etc. are mentioned but not described.

Reviewer #3: for the ANOVA result, you shall present it with table.

it is not a 2x2 factorial design. I guess it is a quasi-experimental only.

given the above study design, you should use general linear model instead of 2-way repeated measure ANOVA for data analysis. You better consult a statistician for the correct test used.

**********

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 #2: Yes: Timothy Regan

Reviewer #3: No

**********

PLoS One. 2022 Dec 22;17(12):e0279621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r006

Author response to Decision Letter 2

28 Nov 2022

Responds to the reviewer’s comments:

Response: Thank you for your comments. Firstly, we are very sorry for our incorrect writing, and we have italicized statistical symbols, added the value of degrees of freedom, and rewritten the p-value of FMI. Secondly, we have inserted a space between words or after commas in above sentences, and we have also changed "fourteen items" to "14 items" and "applied by" to "applied to". Finally, in table 3, the result of “group” was same as “direct effect”, thus it did not include "group" to avoid duplication. In addition, according to the suggestion of Reviewer 3, we presented the ANOVA results in table 3.

Reviewer 2:

I would recommend stating the mediation effect as more of a preliminary finding in need of further replication using a larger sample. When the sample size is this small, applying mediation is more of an 'exploratory' route.

Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that our sample size was relatively small. Thus, in future research, the mediation effect should be further replicated using a larger sample size. Now we have rewritten the limitation part in the end of the Discussion.

I would also recommend stating what the participants actually did during the mindfulness exercise? Activities, meditation, etc. are mentioned but not described.

Response: Thank you for your comments. As reviewer recommend, we have stated what the participants actually did during the mindfulness exercise in “2.3 Procedure” part.

Reviewer 3:

for the ANOVA result, you shall present it with table.

Response: Thank you for your comments. As reviewer recommend, we have presented the ANOVA results in table 3.

it is not a 2x2 factorial design. I guess it is a quasi-experimental only. given the above study design, you should use general linear model instead of 2-way repeated measure ANOVA for data analysis. You better consult a statistician for the correct test used.

Response: Thank you for your comment. In our study, the group (mindfulness group vs. control group) was a between-subject factor, and the time (pre-intervention vs. post-intervention) was a within-subject factor, thus it could been seen as a 2×2 mixed factorial design. And 2-way repeated measure ANOVA should be used for data analysis, and previous studies provided evidence for this (Zhang, C.-Q., Si, G., Duan, Y., Lyu, Y., Keatley, D. A., & Chan, D. K. C. (2016). The effects of mindfulness training on beginners’ skill acquisition in dart throwing: A randomized controlled trial. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 22, 279–285.).

We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file.^{(20.8KB, docx)}

PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r007

Decision Letter 3

Hirokazu Taniguchi

12 Dec 2022

Effectiveness of Brief Mindfulness Intervention for College Students’ Problematic Smartphone Use: The mediating Role of Self-control

PONE-D-21-19862R3

Dear Dr. Liu,

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.

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Kind regards,

Hirokazu Taniguchi, Ph.D.

Section Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

In reporting the mediating effect analysis, the authors should indicate not only the effect of SCS change on post-intervention MPATS (one of the components of the mediating effect) but also the effect of group on SCS change (the other components).

As reviewer #3 has commented, it is worthwhile to use the general linear model and compare the model results with the results of the ANOVA.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #3: just one point about the study design. properly, it is a quasi-experimental design with manipulation and control but no randomization.

**********

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.

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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 #3: No

**********

PLoS One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279621.r008

Acceptance letter

Hirokazu Taniguchi

14 Dec 2022

PONE-D-21-19862R3

Effectiveness of Brief Mindfulness Intervention for College Students’ Problematic Smartphone Use: The mediating Role of Self-control

Dear Dr. Liu:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

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 plosone@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. Hirokazu Taniguchi

Section Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

S1 Data

(SAV)

Click here for additional data file.^{(2KB, sav)}

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Attachment

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Data Availability Statement

The [DATA.sav] data used to support the findings of this study are included within the supplementary information file.

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PERMALINK

Effectiveness of brief mindfulness intervention for college students’ problematic smartphone use: The mediating role of self-control

Fengbo Liu

Zhongqiu Zhang

Shuqiang Liu

Zhantao Feng

Roles

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

1 Introduction

2 Methods

2.1 Participants

2.2 Measures

2.3 Procedure

2.4 Data analysis

3 Results

3.1 Description results and bivariate correlation

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and independent sample t-test comparison of the demographic variables.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and correlation test of the study variables.

3.2 Independent-sample t-tests results

3.3 Two-way repeated measures ANOVA results

Table 3. Summaries of two-way repeated-measures ANOVA comparison.

Fig 1. FMI scores of two groups in pre- and post- intervention.

Fig 2. Problematic smartphone use scores of two groups in pre- and post- intervention.

Fig 3. Self-control scores of two groups in pre- and post- intervention.

3.4 Mediating effect analysis results

Table 4. Summaries of PROCESS mediating effect test.

4 Discussion

5 Conclusion

Supporting information

Acknowledgments

Data Availability

Funding Statement

References

Decision Letter 0

Hirokazu Taniguchi

Roles

Author response to Decision Letter 0

Decision Letter 1

Hirokazu Taniguchi

Roles

Author response to Decision Letter 1

Decision Letter 2

Hirokazu Taniguchi

Roles

Author response to Decision Letter 2

Decision Letter 3

Hirokazu Taniguchi

Roles

Acceptance letter

Hirokazu Taniguchi

Roles

Associated Data

Supplementary Materials

Data Availability Statement

ACTIONS

PERMALINK

RESOURCES

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