Offline Factors Influencing the Online Safety of Adolescents with Family Vulnerabilities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI enjoyed reading your paper! I have attached my comments for your to consider.
Thanks.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
The paper should be revised for readability. It is confusing and sentences are too complex at times.
Author Response
We thank Reviewer 1 for their careful feedback, which predominantly focused on the phrasing of the paper, alongside a note that the English could be improved overall. We have now gone through the full article, and have made changes to sentences that are long and/or confusing. We have also made minor grammatical changes throughout the article, which we believe has improved readability.
Finally, we have checked each of the references in the reference list carefully to ensure that these adhere to APA 7th edition formatting.
We now outline the specific comments below. Throughout this process, we became aware that Reviewer 1 may have been provided with a different version to the one that we had on the submission portal: we note that some of the later comments do not match up with the line numbers on our version. We have tried to address these comments, and have made a note of the line numbers that are on our copy. We apologise for the confusion.
- Line 10: sexual exploitation, or content….. remove “or”
RESPONSE: This has been changed to ‘and’ to better reflect the meaning.
- Line 31- confusing sentence- and the percent dos not belong in the citation
RESPONSE: This sentence has been amended for clarity, and the percentage has been removed.
- Line 37- what are the four c’s- name what you’re referring to. And this paragraph should be broken into more sentences for readability
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. The ‘four c’s’ are specified in this paragraph, and are indicated in italics to demonstrate this. We have now added the words “These include:” to make it clear that this is what is being referred to.
- Please define or explain what you mean by “vulnerabilities” earlier on
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. The vulnerabilities that are relevant to this paper are explained in lines 56-58, in the first introductory part of the article, which is before we move onto the specific ‘Family Vulnerabilities’ section. This is as follows: “…those experiencing family vulnerabilities – such as adolescents in social care, young carers, and young people experiencing high levels of family stress – are understudied.” We then explore these in depth in the following section. We hope that this covers this query.
- Line 63- sentence is not grammatically correct
RESPONSE: We have amended line 63 to be two sentences, which we feel now improves the clarity here.
- Line 89- what is SEN? Please state what this is.
RESPONSE: Please note that line 89 is not the first mention of ‘SEN’. This has previously been abbreviated in line 52, which is the first mention of this, and is consistent with APA recommendations for abbreviations. We also include this in the ‘abbreviations list’ at the end of the paper.
- Line 106-113: this should be broken into more sentences for readability.
RESPONSE: We have amended this paragraph (lines 101-109) to now be multiple sentences, and thank you for this recommendation.
- Line 118- not all of what are weighted the same?
RESPONSE: We are unable to find the referred point in line 118, but believe that this may relate to line 140. We have now amended this sentence to say that ‘not of these harms carry the same impact risk’, which improves the clarity.
- Line 118- what are the “certain harms”?
RESPONSE: As above, we believe that this may relate to line 144. These certain harms are specified in the original submission in the parentheses in this sentence “(e.g., grooming or viewing pro-anorexia or pro-suicide content) than other harms (e.g., buying fake goods)”. We have now moved this parentheses to be immediately after the ‘certain harms’ for additional clarity.
- Line 132- please reword this sentence for readability
RESPONSE: Based on the line numbers of the previous points, we believe that this may relate to line 156. We have reworded this sentence as requested, and believe that is now clearer. This now reads as: “Similarly, Boyd and Hargittai (2013) found that parents were most frequently concerned about their children meeting strangers online: in 2020, approximately 17% of children aged 10-15 spoke to strangers online, and 5% of all children met up with strangers in person (Office for National Statistics, 2021).”
- Line 189-90- what does “prefer not to say” refer to? Are you referring to how they identify in terms of gender? If so, that should be stated.
RESPONSE: In line 231 we state that “28 responded ‘prefer not to say’”. We agree that this seems ambiguous as the sentence is discussing both gender and age. Subsequently, we have amended this to say, “28 declined to specify their gender”.
- The authors rely on Katz and El Asam a lot- please include more resources in your citations.
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. We agree that this is particularly noticeable in our ‘Introduction’. Subsequently, we’ve ensured that we cite multiple sources in the introduction alongside the El Asam and Katz articles: as these are key authors in this area, we did not want to completely remove their contributions here, but instead have supplemented with other relevant publications.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis article provides timely and impactful insight into how offline family vulnerabilities influence adolescents’ exposure to severe online harms. The use of matched samples and parallel mediation adds methodological strength and clarity to the findings. However, the broad grouping of various family vulnerabilities may limit nuanced interpretation. Future studies might consider distinguishing among types of vulnerabilities to improve precision. Overall, this is a well-constructed and policy-relevant contribution to the digital resilience literature.
The research paper "Offline factors influencing the online safety of adolescents with family vulnerabilities" makes a significant contribution to understanding how offline factors affect online safety outcomes for vulnerable youth. This methodologically sound study employs a matched-control design comparing 213 adolescents with family vulnerabilities to 213 non-vulnerable peers, revealing that vulnerable youth experience substantially higher exposure to severe online harms (72.65% versus 50.0%). The findings demonstrate that this relationship is mediated by life-affecting worry and reduced parental e-safety guidance. Although both groups receive similar e-safety education, vulnerable adolescents perceive their parents as less knowledgeable about online safety and rely more on friends for guidance, which raises questions about the quality and effectiveness of peer-based safety education that future research should explore. The study effectively challenges conventional approaches by showing that traditional e-safety education alone is insufficient for protecting vulnerable adolescents, suggesting instead a more holistic intervention framework that integrates emotional support and targeted parental guidance. While the COVID-19 pandemic context represents both a limitation and strength of the study, the socio-ecological framework provides a strong theoretical foundation linking offline vulnerabilities to online risks. The study would benefit from further differentiation among subtypes of family vulnerability and more accessible labeling in figures, but its policy recommendations appropriately emphasize the need for multi-layered digital resilience strategies that address underlying psychosocial needs rather than focusing solely on classroom-based digital literacy.
Author Response
This article provides timely and impactful insight into how offline family vulnerabilities influence adolescents’ exposure to severe online harms. The use of matched samples and parallel mediation adds methodological strength and clarity to the findings. However, the broad grouping of various family vulnerabilities may limit nuanced interpretation. Future studies might consider distinguishing among types of vulnerabilities to improve precision. Overall, this is a well-constructed and policy-relevant contribution to the digital resilience literature.
RESPONSE: We thank Reviewer 2 for their positive feedback on our paper. Although we had a brief point about future research exploring different family vulnerabilities in isolation in the recommendations section, we feel that this was not particularly clear. Instead, we have amended this to a similar phrasing to Reviewer 2’s suggestion, and now reads as “Future research would benefit from distinguishing between the different types of family vulnerability, alongside focusing on different forms of social care on online harm exposure.” (Line 566). We believe this now reads better, and thank Reviewer 2 for this feedback.
The research paper "Offline factors influencing the online safety of adolescents with family vulnerabilities" makes a significant contribution to understanding how offline factors affect online safety outcomes for vulnerable youth. This methodologically sound study employs a matched-control design comparing 213 adolescents with family vulnerabilities to 213 non-vulnerable peers, revealing that vulnerable youth experience substantially higher exposure to severe online harms (72.65% versus 50.0%). The findings demonstrate that this relationship is mediated by life-affecting worry and reduced parental e-safety guidance. Although both groups receive similar e-safety education, vulnerable adolescents perceive their parents as less knowledgeable about online safety and rely more on friends for guidance, which raises questions about the quality and effectiveness of peer-based safety education that future research should explore.
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. We have now added slightly more discussion of peer-based education into the discussion (lines 441 – 464). We have added a comment that future research would benefit from exploring efficacy and content of peer-based education for internet safety.
The study effectively challenges conventional approaches by showing that traditional e-safety education alone is insufficient for protecting vulnerable adolescents, suggesting instead a more holistic intervention framework that integrates emotional support and targeted parental guidance. While the COVID-19 pandemic context represents both a limitation and strength of the study, the socio-ecological framework provides a strong theoretical foundation linking offline vulnerabilities to online risks. The study would benefit from further differentiation among subtypes of family vulnerability and more accessible labelling in figures, but its policy recommendations appropriately emphasize the need for multi-layered digital resilience strategies that address underlying psychosocial needs rather than focusing solely on classroom-based digital literacy.
RESPONSE: Alongside the discussion of each subtype of family vulnerability in the ‘Introduction’ section, we have now given this more attention in other sections. In the discussion, we have provided some more context of the experiences of those in social care and young carers (line 500), which is consistent with the introduction. We have also included a recommendation for future research to explore this in line 542: we were reluctant to draw assumptions in this paragraph about why parents in each subgroup differ, and the literature is limited here. Thus, we have opened this up for future direction.
We have made attempts to improve the accessibility of Figure 1. This has involved ensuring that all numbers in the figure are centred in their textbox, and increasing the size slightly, whilst still adhering to the text formatting requirements. We have ensured that all labels match those in the article for consistency. We have also reviewed the written explanation of this figure to ensure consistency in the values presented. Finally, we have amended the title of Figure 1 to now say “severe online harms” instead of “SOH” to enhance understanding of what this figure shows without needing to check the article for abbreviations. We have added “All coefficients are standardised” to the notes.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for utilizing the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID lockdowns to conduct this research so that we can better understand the offline factors that influence the safety of adolsecents with family vulnerabilities.
As your article states, online risks are widespread and we need to better understand what factors have impact so that we can reduce risk and increase protective factors as much as possible. Given the current emphasis on online safety education, it was diappointing to learn that e-safety education is not a protective factor in isolation.
Of course, it is not surprising to learn that children with Family Vulnerabilites and life-affecting worry experience higher rates of Significant Online Harms than those who do not.
Your finding that although e-safety education in isolation did not have an affect, parents who provide higher levels of e-safety guidance DO have a protective affect, which might be an important factor to conisder in delivery and implementation of e-safety guidance.
Although you noted that adolescents with Family Vulnerabilities rely more heavily on their friends for e-safety education than those with NVA, I was surpprised by how dismissive you were of the presumed quality of peer education. I have not conducted research on that question, but my own observations based on 20 years in this field is that many adolscents are more savvy than adults when it comes to online safety. I wonder if there is any research other than Macaulay, et al., 2020, to corroborate your assertion or if you can find literature to the contrary.
I also question your conclusion that "a therapeutic response is needed." That conlusion is not supported by the results you present and I strongly urge you to reconsider making that assertion. I am not opposed to such an approach, but nothing in your study looked at the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions to reduce risk to signifcant online harms. I believe that study would be a worthy one, but that is not what you studied here. Maybe propose a study on that topic in your Implications section instead?
In any event, other than those two sections, I very much enjoyed reading your article and learning about your research. Thank you for conducting it and sharing it with me as a peer reviewer and hopefully the public soon!
Author Response
Thank you for utilizing the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID lockdowns to conduct this research so that we can better understand the offline factors that influence the safety of adolsecents with family vulnerabilities.
As your article states, online risks are widespread and we need to better understand what factors have impact so that we can reduce risk and increase protective factors as much as possible. Given the current emphasis on online safety education, it was disappointing to learn that e-safety education is not a protective factor in isolation.
Of course, it is not surprising to learn that children with Family Vulnerabilites and life-affecting worry experience higher rates of Significant Online Harms than those who do not.
RESPONSE: We thank Reviewer 3 for their positive comments on our paper: we agree that our findings surrounding e-safety education were disappointing, but hope that this can be beneficial for future guidance!
Your finding that although e-safety education in isolation did not have an affect, parents who provide higher levels of e-safety guidance DO have a protective affect, which might be an important factor to consider in delivery and implementation of e-safety guidance.
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. Upon reviewing, we felt that this point could have been better emphasised in our article. We have now added in a sentence to acknowledge that parental e-safety guidance is an important factor for supporting young people online (line 539).
Although you noted that adolescents with Family Vulnerabilities rely more heavily on their friends for e-safety education than those with NVA, I was surprised by how dismissive you were of the presumed quality of peer education. I have not conducted research on that question, but my own observations based on 20 years in this field is that many adolescents are more savvy than adults when it comes to online safety. I wonder if there is any research other than Macaulay, et al., 2020, to corroborate your assertion or if you can find literature to the contrary.
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment, which is similar to a point raised by Reviewer 2. We have now added slightly more discussion of peer-based education into the discussion (lines 441 – 464). Unfortunately, this is a very understudied area, which we have now emphasised in the discussion. We have added a comment that future research would benefit from exploring efficacy and content of peer-based education for internet safety.
I also question your conclusion that "a therapeutic response is needed." That conclusion is not supported by the results you present and I strongly urge you to reconsider making that assertion. I am not opposed to such an approach, but nothing in your study looked at the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions to reduce risk to significant online harms. I believe that study would be a worthy one, but that is not what you studied here. Maybe propose a study on that topic in your Implications section instead?
RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment, and for noticing this inaccuracy. We have now removed this point, which helps to enhance the accuracy of our conclusions.
In any event, other than those two sections, I very much enjoyed reading your article and learning about your research. Thank you for conducting it and sharing it with me as a peer reviewer and hopefully the public soon!
RESPONSE: Thank you again for such positive feedback!
