Nearly two-thirds of online Americans use the Internet for faith-related reasons, according to a new Pew Internet & American Life Project survey conducted by two University of Colorado at Boulder professors.
The 64 percent of Internet users who perform spiritual and religious activities online represent nearly 82 million Americans, according to Stewart Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark of the CU-Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Among the most popular and important spiritually-related online activities measured in the national survey were:
* 38 percent of the nation's 128 million Internet users have sent and received e-mail with spiritual content
* 35 percent have sent or received online greeting cards related to religious holidays
* 32 percent have gone online to read news accounts of religious events and affairs
* 21 percent have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays
* 17 percent have looked for information about where they could attend religious services
* 14 percent have used e-mail to plan church meetings
* 11 percent have downloaded or listened to religious music online
* 7 percent have made or responded to online prayer requests
* 7 percent have made donations to religious organizations or charities
In sum, 64 percent of Internet users said they had done at least one of these things online and many had done more than one. This figure represents a substantially higher number of online faithful than the Pew Internet & American Life Project has measured in the past. The project worked with scholars from CU-Boulder to devise a new battery of questions to prompt Internet users' recollections of the things they do online on matters related to religion and spirituality.
"There has been much speculation about the impact of the Internet on religion, particularly as increasing numbers of Americans have been turning to sources other than their own traditions and clergy," said Hoover, the lead author of the Pew Internet Project report.
"The survey provides clear evidence that the majority of the online faithful are there for personal spiritual reasons, including seeking outside their own traditions," Hoover added, "but they are also deeply grounded in those traditions, and this Internet activity supplements their ties to traditional institutions, rather than moving them away from church." The survey found that two-thirds of those who attend religious services weekly use the Internet for personal religious or spiritual purposes.
The report, "Faith Online," says that those who use the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes are more likely to be women, white, middle-aged, college educated, and relatively well-to-do. In addition, they are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet population.
"The online faithful are quite serious about their spiritual journeys, and they are committed to those in their social networks who accompany them on those journeys," said Clark, co-author of the report. "Most of the online faithful describe themselves as spiritual and religious and that is a perfect characterization of their use of the Internet. They probe for information and network with others in order to enrich their spiritual lives."
* 28 percent of the online faithful said they had used the Internet to seek or exchange information about their own religious faith or tradition with others
* 26 percent said they had used the Internet to seek or exchange information about the religious faiths or traditions of others
Online evangelicals are a significant subgroup of the American religious landscape, according to the study. The study found them to resemble other Protestants in terms of their Internet behaviors in some ways, but to be unique in other ways. They are slightly less experienced in Internet use than other categories of religious affiliation. But they are more likely than others to engage in all categories of online religious activity.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to explore the social impact of the Internet. It does not advocate policy outcomes.