Social media forms part of young adults’ everyday communication, work, learning, and social relationships. High levels of use, however, do not necessarily indicate problematic digital behaviour. This study examined the relationships among taqwa, self-regulation, and social media intensity among Muslim young adults, with particular attention to the indirect association of self-regulation between taqwa and social media intensity. A cross-sectional correlational design was employed. Data were collected through an online questionnaire from 200 Muslim participants aged 18–35 years who actively used social media. The measures assessed taqwa, self-regulation, and social media intensity. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, regression analysis, and PROCESS Macro Model 4 with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Taqwa was positively associated with self-regulation (r = .517, p < .001). Neither taqwa nor self-regulation was significantly associated with social media intensity. The direct association between taqwa and social media intensity was not significant, and the indirect effect through self-regulation was also non-significant because the 95% bootstrap confidence interval included zero. The proposed mediation model was therefore not supported. The results suggest that taqwa is more closely associated with internal self-regulatory capacity than with the quantity of social media engagement. Social media intensity should be distinguished from problematic social media use because frequency, duration, and involvement may reflect communication, work, education, social relationships, entertainment, or religious activities. Research on Muslim digital behaviour should therefore assess not only how often individuals use social media, but also the purposes, control, content, and consequences of that use.
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