Reply to Comments on “The digital health dilemma: Exploring cyberchondria, well-being, and smartphone addiction in medical and non-medical undergraduates”

A recent commentary has been published in response to our article, "The Digital Health Dilemma: Exploring Cyberchondria, Well-Being, and Smartphone Addiction in Medical and Non-Medical Undergraduates," featured in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry. We are deeply grateful for the authors' thorough and perceptive observations as well as their keen interest in our research. In an effort to adhere to word limits and other constraints (for example, the reviewer's suggestions to remove certain obvious things to make the article more focused and not unnecessarily lengthy), we made a deliberate decision to exclude specific contextual details from the manuscript, which may not have been readily apparent to the reviewers. To enhance transparency and understanding, we are committed to thoroughly addressing the issues that have been highlighted in the commentary. We recognize that online surveys may not be the most robust sampling method. However, we chose to conduct this survey during the COVID-19 pandemic (2021–2022), when people heavily relied on online resources for information. Given the circumstances, conducting an online survey was a practical and feasible approach to ensuring safety from COVID-19. Since accurately measuring the average duration of smartphone use is challenging (as it is not practically possible for anyone to remember the exact duration of smartphone use per day), we categorized the usage duration and collected responses accordingly. This method provided is a practical approach to gathering such data.[1] Statistically significant differences are not always clinically significant. In our study, we highlighted this in our results by noting that the variance explained by one variable on the other was low, indicating a weak relationship between them.[2] Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.