Post-earthquake traumatic stress and future time perspective: the indirect roles of problematic social media use and doomscrolling

OBJECTIVE: Natural disasters such as earthquakes disrupt individuals' sense of safety and temporal continuity. In response to uncertainty, individuals may increasingly engage with digital environments, which may evolve into maladaptive patterns of use. Drawing on Uncertainty Reduction Theory, this study examined whether problematic social media use and doomscrolling function as indirect pathways linking post-earthquake traumatic stress to future time perspective. METHODS: A total of 414 undergraduate students from a public university in Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, participated in this cross-sectional study. Data were collected using validated self-report measures. The hypothesized indirect effects model was tested using path analysis with bootstrapping (5,000 resamples). RESULTS: Post-earthquake traumatic stress was positively associated with problematic social media use and limited future time perspective. Problematic social media use significantly predicted both doomscrolling and limited future time perspective. Doomscrolling did not emerge as a significant predictor of future time perspective. Indirect effects analyses indicated that problematic social media use accounted for the relationship between traumatic stress and future time perspective, whereas the indirect pathway through doomscrolling was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that problematic social media use may represent a key behavioral pathway linking post-earthquake traumatic stress to individuals' perceptions of the future. Although doomscrolling is associated with problematic social media use, it does not independently contribute to future time perspective. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing between different forms of digital engagement in understanding psychological responses to trauma.