The relationship between secularity or modernity and religious belief choices is a hot topic of academic concern. However, there has been scarce attention from the academic community regarding the religious belief choices and driving factors of China’s Generation Z, who have grown up in a secular or modern society. In this paper, we use the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) and a modified Cost and Rewards Scale to measure this group’s tendency towards “religious centrality”, and investigate the inherent driving factors using logistic regression. The results show that the religiousness of China’s Generation Z is higher than the overall level of religious beliefs in China. Their choice of religious beliefs is the result of a rational consideration and balance of “religious rewards”, but most of them are not driven by the consideration of “afterlife rewards” as the supernatural core factor of religion. Instead, they are driven by the actual benefits brought by the choice of religious beliefs and the factors that affect these benefits, such as religious socialization. This conclusion validates the opinions of Stark and Finke, as well as Hartmut Rosa, and breaks the status quo of single research model and method in previous relevant studies.

This study focuses on the relationship between mixed religions and family donations in China as the object of analysis, where individual donations are primarily in the form of family contributions. Although there is considerable research on the relationship between religion and individual donations, the academic community has yet to clarify the connection between mixed religions and family donations. Based on the large-scale survey data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies, this study employs econometric models such as probit and tobit models to examine the relationship. To mitigate endogeneity and enhance the robustness of the conclusions, this research also conducts instrumental variable analysis and robustness analysis. The study finds that the influence of mixed religions on family donations is greater than that of non-mixed religions, but this influence is more pronounced in families with higher donation levels. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that mixed religions have a greater impact on donations in families headed by individuals aged 41–59, females, those with no religious affiliation, residents of urban areas, and families in the western and northeastern regions. Furthermore, the impact of mixed religions on family donations is higher only when there is a combination of one or three religions. Additional analysis indicates that households with lower educational attainment, non-Party members, individuals suffering from illnesses, and unmarried females are more likely to choose mixed religions.

Internet addiction has become a significant concern due to its detrimental effects on individual well-being, leading to emotional, psychological, and social challenges. Scholars have long explored various strategies to mitigate the risk of internet addiction. Recently, scholars have argued that religion is a protective factor against internet addiction. However, empirical research has reported a mix of negative and nonsignificant main effects. In this study, we used an instrumental variable quantile analysis to re-estimate the impact of religion (religious belief and religiosity) on internet addiction (generalized internet addiction and short video addiction) based on data from a nationally representative survey and (N = 2337; M_age = 42.03, SD = 14.15, range = 18 to 86) an online survey (N = 441, M_age = 28.98, SD = 7.59, range = 18 to 59). The results indicated that religious belief could suppress generalized internet addiction and short video addiction when endogeneity was not considered. However, when endogeneity was taken into account, the impacts of religious belief on generalized internet addiction and short video addiction were not significant. In addition, the impact of religiosity on short video addiction changed from significant to nonsignificant when endogeneity was considered. Our findings revealed that the protective effect of religion on internet addiction was very limited. Our study also provides a possible explanation for the existing mixed conclusions about religion and internet addiction.