Adverse childhood experiences, loneliness, and doomscrolling on social media newsfeeds among adult men across Generations X, Y, Z

TL;DR

This study explores how childhood trauma, loneliness, and doomscrolling on social media differ among generations of Israeli men.

Contribution

It identifies generational differences in how early adversity relates to doomscrolling and loneliness.

Findings

Gen X men with ACEs experience loneliness but not doomscrolling.

Gen Y men with ACEs directly engage in doomscrolling without loneliness.

Gen Z men show a mediating role of loneliness in ACE-doomscrolling.

Abstract

Drawing on compensatory and compulsory internet use theories, media system dependency theory, and generational cohort theory, and informed by scholarship on generationally differentiated masculine norms and gendered socialization, this study examines the role of loneliness in the relationship between adverse child hood experiences (ACEs) and doomscrolling among Israeli men from Generations X (born 1965–1980), Y (born 1981–1996), and Z (born 1997–2006).

Using a cross sectional research design, data were collected from 570 Hebrew-speaking men using validated self-report measures.

Findings reveal that among Gen X, ACEs are linked to loneliness but not to doomscrolling. For Gen Y, ACEs predict doom scrolling directly, without mediation of loneliness. In contrast, Gen Z shows a distinct mediating role of loneliness in the ACE-doomscrolling link, reflecting compensatory digital coping.

This study reveals generational distinctions in both the emotional mechanisms underlying doomscrolling and the broader role of digital media in the lives of men. Interpreted through the lens of generationally molded masculinities, these distinctions help contextualize differences in digital media use across cohorts, with doomscrolling representing one domain in which early adversity may be reflected later in life.

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