Gender Differences in Sexting and Its Association with Well-Being and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization from Adolescence to Old Age

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscsript reports on the study of sexting behaviors among men and women across different stages in the life span. It also analyzes the associations of sexting with several indicators of psychological adjustment and intimate partner violence victimization.

The study analyzes data on a huge sample (more than 6500 participants), which includes adolescents, young people, adults, midlife and old persons. The manuscsript is very readable, nicely written, with a clear structure, and provides interesting data on sexting beyond the developmental stage usually studied in previous research (i.e., young people).

I have some minor suggestions that may help improve the quality of the manuscript:

1. As sexting is an evolving phenomenon, and figures of involvement in sexting most possibly change over time, I suggest that the time when data was collected is reported. This may be particularly important in the recent years, as the pandemic is said to have deeply influenced relations with technology; time location, before or after the pandemic, may be relevant.

2. For the sake of clarity, the figure captions could be modified. As they read now, the word "changes" might imply that there is a longitudinal follow-up over the life span. Instead of "changes in", "Differences in" (active sexting..., etc) could be less misleading.

3. Related to this point, an additional comment on the possible cohort effects could be added to the limitation concerning the cross-sectional nature of the study (page 14, paragraph 3). As different age groups are compared, it may be relevant to underline that the different groups come from different generations (cohorts), with different backgrounds, technological experience, and educational settings, and, thus, differences cannot be attributed solely to the developmental stage.

4. As for the limitations, I would add the difficulties to measure sexting with questionnaires that have been mainly developed for young people, with contents that may not be so relevant for adults or old people. The development of measures which are more suited for cross-age comparisons could well be a suggested further line of research. Given the evidence brought by this paper on the relevance of sexting beyond youth, advances in measurement considering different developmental periods is warranted.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for your valuable feedback and insightful comments. Please find below our detailed response to each recommendation. In the revised manuscript, all changes are highlighted in red.

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript reports on the study of sexting behaviors among men and women across different stages in the life span. It also analyzes the associations of sexting with several indicators of psychological adjustment and intimate partner violence victimization.

The study analyzes data on a huge sample (more than 6500 participants), which includes adolescents, young people, adults, midlife and old persons. The manuscript is very readable, nicely written, with a clear structure, and provides interesting data on sexting beyond the developmental stage usually studied in previous research (i.e., young people).

Response: Thank you for your recognition of the paper and for your thoughtful and thorough review

I have some minor suggestions that may help improve the quality of the manuscript:

1. As sexting is an evolving phenomenon, and figures of involvement in sexting most possibly change over time, I suggest that the time when data was collected is reported. This may be particularly important in the recent years, as the pandemic is said to have deeply influenced relations with technology; time location, before or after the pandemic, may be relevant.

Response: In the revised manuscript, on page 3, lines 136-139, it was stated that data were collected between April 2, 2021 and July 31, 2023. As stated in the revised manuscript, although the COVID-19 pandemic continued during these dates, most of the Spanish population was vaccinated and there were virtually no social restrictions due to the pandemic.

2. For the sake of clarity, the figure captions could be modified. As they read now, the word "changes" might imply that there is a longitudinal follow-up over the life span. Instead of "changes in", "Differences in" (active sexting..., etc) could be less misleading.

Response: In the revised manuscript, "Changes in" has been replaced by "Differences in" in the captions of the three figures in the manuscript (on page 8, line 301 and on page 9 lines 327 and 340).

3. Related to this point, an additional comment on the possible cohort effectscould be added to the limitation concerning the cross-sectional nature of the study (page 14, paragraph 3). As different age groups are compared, it may be relevant to underline that the different groups come from different generations (cohorts), with different backgrounds, technological experience, and educational settings, and, thus, differences cannot be attributed solely to the developmental stage.

Response: In the revised manuscript, on page 14, lines 502 to 506, in the limitations, we have added that there may be cohort effects and the comments suggested by the reviewer.

4. As for the limitations, I would add the difficulties to measure sexting with questionnaires that have been mainly developed for young people, with contents that may not be so relevant for adults or old people. The development of measures which are more suited for cross-age comparisons could well be a suggested further line of research. Given the evidence brought by this paper on the relevance of sexting beyond youth, advances in measurement considering different developmental periods is warranted.

Response: In the revised manuscript, on page 14, lines 508-510, the limitation suggested by the Reviewer has been added. In addition, in the Recommendations for future studies, on page 14, lines 515-518, her/his suggestions for further line of research have been included.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The review sharing in pdf document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your valuable feedback and insightful comments. Please find below our detailed response to each recommendation. In the revised manuscript, all changes are highlighted in red.

 

First of all, thank you for considering me for this position. I really appreciate the invite to review the article " Gender Differences in Sexting and Its Association with Well-Being and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization from Adolescence to Old Age”. The main question addressed in this manuscript is very relevant and interesting. A very positive point is that sexting behaviour was analyzed throughout the life cycle, not only in adolescence and young adulthood, which are the stages on which most studies focus. Moreover, the sample is very large (N=6,719). Congratulations by the excellent sample size!

Response: Thank you for your recognition of the work and for your careful and thorough review. We have followed all of your recommendations, which we appreciate as they have increased the accuracy of the text.

I just have minor suggestions:

-In section 2.1. Participants and procedure, lines 153 to 155 comment on the differences between women and men, stating that "There were no statistically significant differences between women and men in terms of age, but there were differences in the other sociodemographic characteristics, with the mean number of children being higher for women than for men, and more common among women who had a university education, were students, and were married or living with their partner”. It should also be noted that it is more common for men than women to be employed, as the difference in the percentages of men and women in this employment category is greater (4.5%) than for students (3.9%). And the same happens with marital status, it should also be noted that it is more frequent for men than women to be never married (the difference is 6.3% for never married and 4.4% for Married/cohabiting).

Response: In the corrected manuscript, on page 4, lines 156 to 159, the text has been revised and corrected to reflect that it is more common for men than women to be employed and never married.

 

-In Measures, on page 5, lines 199 to 201 it says "Life satisfaction was measured using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) [48], a 5-item scale designed to assess the respondent's satisfaction with life as a whole [49] (e.g., "In most ways my life is close to my ideal", "I am satisfied with my life"). It would be better to put a dot after [49] and then include examples of ítems: "In most ways my life is close to my ideal", "I am satisfied with my life", "I am satisfied with my life", "In most ways my life is close to my ideal", "I am satisfied with my life", "I am satisfied with my life".

Response: The text has been corrected as suggested by the Reviewer. In the revised manuscript, on page 5, lines 205-207 now appear:  Life satisfaction was measured using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) [48], a 5-item scale designed to assess the respondent’s satisfaction with life as a whole [49]. Examples of items include "In most ways my life is close to my ideal", "I am satisfied with my life".

 

-On page 6, lines 233, 234 it says "In the present study, the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the 23 items that make up the total test was 0.94;". It would be more appropriate include "questionnaire" instead of "test".

Response: In the revised manuscript, on page 6, line 241, the term "test" has been replaced by "questionnaire".

 

-In the Results section, on page 8, lines 300 to 302 it says "Adult males also scored higher than all other groups, with statistically significant differences except for adolescent males (p = 0.18)". It would be more appropiate include "Adult males also scored higher than all other groups except for young males".

Response: In the corrected manuscript, on page 8, line 308, "except young men" has been included.

 

Good luck

Response: Thank you very much

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments

- The article does not include questionnaires for the reader to see how the author has linked sexting to cyber and offline intimate partner violence victimization.

- The study sample consisted of people, 32.8% of which identified as men and 67.2% of which identified as women.

This shows a huge disparity.

- The sampling process is not described in the Materials and Methods section.

- The study does not present any recommendations.

- Lines 159-162: "Participation was voluntary and anonymous, and no incentives were offered to participants. Participants were recruited through the social networks of undergraduate and graduate students who shared the link to the questionnaire through their social networks and received credit for sharing the link after verifying that the tests had been completed."

The above process led to almost half of the participants being students and raises questions about the validity of the data. 

- Lines 45-47: "Smartphones allow people to have a mobile connection to the Internet, including websites, email, messaging services, and social media"

Please identify the social media.

- References 27 and 28 are the same.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing is required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

Thank you for your valuable feedback and insightful comments. Please find below our detailed response to each recommendation. In the revised manuscript, all changes are highlighted in red.

 

Comments

- The article does not include questionnaires for the reader to see how the author has linked sexting to cyber and offline intimate partner violence victimization.

Response: The article does not include the full text of the questionnaires so as not to violate copyright, but in subsection 2.2. Measures, in the subsection "2.2.1. Sexting Behaviors" the scale used to assess sexting is described and several examples of the items included in the scale are given. And in section "2.2.6. Cyberviolence and Offline Intimate Partner Violence Victimization" is the description of the questionnaire that assesses intimate partner violence victimization, which includes examples of items that assess cyber and offline intimate partner violence victimization. We believe that the description of the questionnaires included in the manuscript and the examples of the items included allow the reader to know how the author linked sexting to cyber and offline partner violence victimization.

 

- The study sample consisted of people, 32.8% of which identified as men and 67.2% of which identified as women.

This shows a huge disparity.

Response: We agree with the reviewer that the percentage of women is much higher than that of men, but the number of men is still very high (n = 2204). The disparity in the number of women compared to men has been included in the limitations of the study (on page 14, lines 499 to 501), and in the recommendations for future studies, it is suggested to use samples of similar size of women and men (on page 14, line 513).

 

- The sampling process is not described in the Materials and Methods section.

Response: In the revised manuscript, in the Materials and Methods section, on page 3, line 136, we included that “Sampling was convenience-based”.

 

- The study does not present any recommendations.

Response: Recommendations for future studies were added after the limitations in the revised manuscript, on page 14, lines 512 to 518.

 

- Lines 159-162: "Participation was voluntary and anonymous, and no incentives were offered to participants. Participants were recruited through the social networks of undergraduate and graduate students who shared the link to the questionnaire through their social networks and received credit for sharing the link after verifying that the tests had been completed."

The above process led to almost half of the participants being students and raises questions about the validity of the data. 

Response: As stated in the revised manuscript (on page 4, lines 165,166), the students who participated in the data collection were students with training in psychological assessment and research who were additionally trained to participate in the data collection of this study. The fact that almost half of the participants in the study were students is normal, given that 59.7% of the sample were young people (under 26 years of age), and in Spain it is very common for young people to study, since there is a universal education system and public universities are cheap, with a system of scholarships that allows people from all social categories to study, while job opportunities for young people are fewer. And a sign of the validity and reliability of the data is that the internal consistency of all the factors is high, most of them close to 0.90 and some of them higher than 0.90.

 

- Lines 45-47: "Smartphones allow people to have a mobile connection to the Internet, including websites, email, messaging services, and social media"

Please identify the social media.

Response: Although smartphones with a mobile connection to the Internet allow access to all social media, we have identified the most common social media in the revised manuscript on page 2, line 47.

 

- References 27 and 28 are the same.

Response: We are very grateful to the Reviewer for noticing that references 27 and 28 were the same, as this allowed us to correct this error. In the corrected manuscript, on page 16, lines 599 to 601, we have added the Dir et al. reference as number 27, which was the correct reference.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing is required.

Response: The entire text has been revised and corrected in order to improve the quality of the English language.