Where the number comes from
0.218
Spread ÷ size for every driver in the file — sleep is at least as flat as screens, which is why flatness proves nothing about screens
The same per-item breakdown, run for all five drivers in the file. If a flat profile were evidence against a mechanism, sleep — 8× stronger, with an obvious mechanism — ought to look different. It does not.
| driver | mean r | sd | spread ÷ size | top-5 share | strongest item |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| screen time | +0.0799 | 0.0174 | 0.218 | 30.0% | 3 |
| sleep quality | +0.2247 | 0.0419 | 0.187 | 28.5% | 19 |
| hours slept | −0.1537 | 0.0330 | 0.215 | 30.4% | 19 |
| weekend midsleep | +0.0878 | 0.0321 | 0.366 | 36.1% | 19 |
| social jetlag | +0.0421 | 0.0245 | 0.581 | 44.7% | 19 |
spread ÷ size is the standard deviation of the 21 correlations divided by their mean, so drivers of very different strength can be compared. Screen time 0.218, sleep quality 0.187. Social jetlag, the weakest driver in the file, is the least uniform of the five — the opposite of what the discarded reading would predict.
the one item that does stand out
Item 19 is the strongest correlate of every sleep measure here, all four of them. That is a real pattern rather than an artefact of one noisy column. The source ships the items unlabelled, so what it asks is not something I can tell you.
| driver | strongest | its r | weakest |
|---|---|---|---|
| screen time | item 3 | +0.1133 | item 6 |
| sleep quality | item 19 | +0.2844 | item 21 |
| hours slept | item 19 | −0.2197 | item 21 |
| weekend midsleep | item 19 | +0.1477 | item 13 |
| social jetlag | item 19 | +0.0866 | item 13 |
