Digital Self-Regulation Before Sleep and Emotional Control Among Adolescents: A Multilevel Cross-National Study of Canada and Hong Kong Using PISA 2022

Using PISA 2022 data from Canada and Hong Kong, we examined bedtime notification management, a single-item indicator of pre-sleep digital self-regulation, and emotional control. The corrected complete-case sample included 18,884 students in 996 schools: 14,630 students in Canada and 4254 in Hong Kong. Two-level survey-weighted models distinguished within-school and between-school associations and adjusted for country, gender, socioeconomic status, school socioeconomic composition, home possessions, and school belonging. Notification management was positively associated with emotional control within schools (b = 0.0377, 95% CI [0.0281, 0.0474]) and between schools (b = 0.0989, 95% CI [0.0511, 0.1466]). The within-school association was weaker in Hong Kong. Gender moderation was nonsignificant under population-oriented weighting (p = 0.281) but significant under equal-system weighting (p = 0.032), indicating sensitivity to pooling. The individual association was small, and these observational findings do not establish causal benefits or the effectiveness of educational interventions.