Association of Religiosity, Meaning in Life, and Social Media use with Common Mental Health Disorders

Religiosity has been linked to favorable and unfavorable mental health outcomes. This study explored how religiosity relates to shared vulnerability for problematic substance use, behavioral addictions, and mental health symptoms, in the context of religion-related variations in meaning in life, social media use, and exposure to harmful online content in a quasi-representative cross-sectional sample of Israeli Jewish adults (N = 2907). Religious participants reported lower problematic substance use, behavioral addictions, and common mental health symptoms, higher meaning in life, lower social media use, and lower exposure to harmful content than other participants. All three outcome domains showed inverse associations with meaning in life and positive associations with social media use and harmful content exposure. After accounting for meaning in life and digital variables, religiosity remained inversely associated with problematic substance use, showed no significant association with mental health symptoms, and was positively associated with behavioral addictions. These findings suggest that meaning in life and digital engagement are broadly associated with shared vulnerability across substance use, addictive behaviors, and mental health symptoms, and they may account for some of religiosity’s relevance to outcomes. Meaning-related and digital factors could be considered when addressing population-level patterns of addiction and mental health.