Doomscrolling Among the Polish Population: Validity of Measurement and Relationships with Social Media Addiction, War Anxiety, and Persistent Thinking About War

Doomscrolling, defined as the compulsive consumption of negative online information, has been increasingly linked to poorer mental health and heightened anxiety in contexts of societal threat. The present research had two main aims: (1) to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Polish adaptation of the Doomscrolling Scale (DSS) and (2) to examine the mediating role of doomscrolling in the relationship between social media addiction and war-related anxiety and persistent thinking about war. Two cross-sectional studies were conducted among Polish adults (Study 1: N = 530; Study 2: N = 529). In Study 1, confirmatory factor analysis supported the one factor structure of both the full 15-item DSS and its short 4-item version. The scales demonstrated high internal consistency and satisfactory convergent validity through positive associations with social media addiction, fear of missing out, escapism, and psychological distress, as well as discriminant validity through weaker relations with well-being and life satisfaction. In Study 2, structural equation modeling indicated that doomscrolling fully mediated the relationships between social media addiction and both anxiety of war and persistent thinking about war. Overall, the findings confirm that doomscrolling is a coherent and measurable construct linked to maladaptive patterns of media use and emotional responses to threat-related content. The validated Polish versions of the DSS may be used in research and applied settings to assess risk associated with excessive exposure to negative information and to inform preventive and psychoeducational interventions aimed at promoting healthier media consumption.