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Fa it h Online
64% of wired Americans have used the
Internet for spiritual or religious purposes
Embargoed for publication at 5pm Eastern, April 7, 2004
Stewart M. Hoover, Ph.D., University of Colorado
Lynn Schofield Clark, Ph.D, University of Colorado
Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project
PEW INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT 1100 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, NW – SUITE 710 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036
202-296-0019 http://www.pewInternet.org/
Sum m a r y of
Findings
64% of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have done things online
that relate to religious or spiritual matters.
Nearly two-thirds of the adults who use the Internet in the United States have used the
Internet for faith-related matters. That represents nearly 82 million Americans. Among
the most popular and important spiritually-related online activities:
38% of the 128 million Internet users have sent and received email with spiritual
content.
35% have sent or received online greeting cards related to religious holidays.
32% have gone online to read news accounts of religious events and affairs.
21% have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays.
17% have looked for information about where they could attend religious services.
This figure represents a substantially higher number of online religious faith seekers than
the Pew Internet & American Life Project has measured before. We used a new battery
of questions to prompt Internet users’ recollections of the things they do online related to
spiritual activities.
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.
The online faithful are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet
population. On a typical day, 63% of them are online. Some 56% of them have been
online for six years or longer. And 60% have broadband connections somewhere in their
life (at home or at work), compared to 54% of all Internet users.
55% of the online faithful are women, compared to the overall Internet population,
which is 50-50 in its gender composition.
83% are white, compared to the overall Internet population, which is 75% white.
49% have college educations, compared to 36% of the entire Internet population.
This Pew Internet & American Life Project report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans' use of the
Internet. All numerical data was gathered through telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between
November 18 and December 14, 2003, among a sample of 2,013 adults, aged 18 and older. For results based on the total sample, one
can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is +/- 2%. For results based Internet
users (n=1,358), the margin of sampling error is +/- 3%.
Pew Internet & American Life Project, 1100 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 710, Washington, DC 20036
202-296-0019 http://www.pewInternet.org
Summary of Findings
47% are between the ages of 30 and 49. This is the same proportion of this age
cohort as the overall Internet population.
31% live in households earning more than $75,000, compared to 26% of the overall
Internet population.
The “online faithful” are devout and they use the Internet for personal
spiritual matters more than for traditional religious functions or work
related to their places of worship. But their faith-activity online seems to
augment their already-strong commitments to their congregations.
As a group, these 82 million people are devout and more likely to be connected to
religious institutions and practices than other Internet users. Half of the online faithful go
to church at least once a week and many describe themselves as evangelicals.
Higher percentages of the online faithful report online activities related to personal
spirituality and religiosity than activities more related to involvement in traditional
religious functions or organizations. This is interesting because many analysts have
assumed that the Internet would make it more likely for people to leave churches in favor
of more flexible online options for religious or spiritual activity. Faith-related activity
online is a supplement to, rather than a substitute for offline religious life.
This study found that the Internet does provide people with sources of information,
symbolic resources, and opportunities for networking and interaction outside the
boundaries of formal religious bodies or traditions. Yet it also found that the online
faithful seem more interested in augmenting their traditional faith practices and
experiences by personally expressing their own faith and spirituality, as opposed to
seeking something new or different in the online environment.
26% of the online faithful seek information about the religious faith of
others. Most are doing this out of curiosity.
Some 28% of the online faithful said they had used the Internet to seek or exchange
information about their own religious faith or tradition with others, while 26% said they
had used the Internet to seek or exchange information about the religious faiths or
traditions of others.
In a follow up question about the motives of those who got information about others,
51% said they did this out of curiosity so as to find out about others’ beliefs, 13% said
they did it for purposes of their own spiritual growth, and 31% said both those reasons
were important to them.
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Summary of Findings
The majority of online faithful describe themselves as “spiritual and
religious.”
This study also explored the extent to which emerging anti-institutional attitudes and
“religious/spiritual seeking” sensibilities are present among Internet users. It has been
assumed that Internet users would be less conventionally religious and therefore more
likely to describe themselves as “spiritual” as opposed to “religious.” While describing
oneself as “spiritual” has achieved important currency in a culture increasingly suspicious
of religious institutions, the majority here seemed most comfortable describing
themselves as both spiritual and religious.
There is a tendency for those who do describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious”
to be among the heaviest Internet users. They also tend to be more likely to engage in
personal spiritual and religious behaviors associated with online “seeking” than they are
to engage in online activities related to religious congregations or organizations.
However, those who describe themselves as “both spiritual and religious” report even
higher levels of these personally-oriented activities and are actually the majority of the
online faithful.
54% of the online faithful describe themselves as religious and spiritual.
33% describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.
6% describe themselves as religious but not spiritual.
4% describe themselves as not religious and not spiritual.
Evangelicals are among the most fervent Internet users for religious and
spiritual purposes.
Online Evangelicals are a significant subgroup of the American religious landscape. This
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. Conversely, they are more likely than
others to engage in all categories of online religious activity. For instance, 69% report
going online for personal religious or spiritual purposes. They are also more likely than
Protestants overall to seek out information about both their own religion (36% report
doing so) and other religions (33% do).
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Summary of Findings
Faith Online: Summary of Findings at a Glance
64% of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have done things online that relate to religious or
spiritual matters.
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.
The “online faithful” are devout and they use the Internet for personal spiritual matters more than for
traditional religious functions or work related to their churches. But their faith-activity online seems to
augment their already-strong commitments to their congregations.
26% of the online faithful seek information about the religious faith of others. Most are doing this out
of curiosity.
The majority of online faithful describe themselves as “spiritual and religious.”
Evangelicals are among the most fervent Internet users for religious and spiritual purposes.
Source: Hoover, Stewart M., Lynn Schofield Clark, and Lee Rainie. Faith Online: 64% of wired Americans have
used the Internet for spiritual and religious purposes. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project,
April 7, 2004.
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Cont e nt s
Summary of Findings
Acknowledgements
Part 1. Introduction
Part 2. Internet uses of the “online faithful”: Who are they and
what do they do online?
Part 3. Information-seeking about religion: looking “inside”
and “outside”
Part 4. Overall Internet use among those who have different
reasons for faith-related online activities
Part 5. Religiously-oriented Internet use among different
religious and spiritual profiles
Part 6. Online religious “seeking”
Part 7. Conclusions
Methodology
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Ack now le dge m e nt s
Stewart M. Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark are on the faculty of the School of
Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, where they carry out
research and public scholarship on media, religion and culture. For more information,
refer to their websites at: www.mediareligion.org. Their work on this project was
supported in part by the Lilly Endowment, Inc.
About the Pew Internet & American Life Project: The Pew Internet Project is a nonprofit,
non-partisan think tank that explores the impact of the Internet on children, families,
communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project
does not advocate policy outcomes. Support for the project is provided by The Pew
Charitable Trusts. The project's Web site: www.pewInternet.org
About Princeton Survey Research Associates: PSRA conducted the survey that is
covered in this report. It is an independent research company specializing in social and
policy work. The firm designs, conducts, and analyzes surveys worldwide. Its expertise
also includes qualitative research and content analysis. With offices in Princeton, New
Jersey, and Washington, D.C., PSRA serves the needs of clients around the nation and
the world. The firm can be reached at 911 Commons Way, Princeton, NJ 08540, by
telephone at 609-924-9204, by fax at 609-924-7499, or by email at
ResearchNJ@PSRA.com
Faith Online
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Pa r t 1 .
Introduction
When it comes to religion and spirituality, the Internet has introduced a flurry of
expectations. Some, such as pollster George Barna, have predicted that millions of
dropouts from religious organizations would turn to the Web for new forms of worship
and inspiration. Sociologist Brenda Brasher has similarly argued that just as the printing
press did centuries earlier, the Internet promises to inaugurate nothing short of a religious
Reformation. Cyberspace, as science commentator Margaret Wertheim has argued, has
certainly become for many a new location for spiritual yearning. Yet some scholars of
religion, such as Quentin Schultze, have expressed concern that the speed, vastness, and
surface-level materials available on the Internet can draw people away from spiritual
contemplation and therefore contribute to a more superficial and less civil life.
In the post 9/11 world, there has also been interest in the Internet’s role in relation to
religious movements that intersect with or challenge national boundaries. In his study of
the increasingly important role the Internet has played for people in the Muslim world,
for example, Gary Bunt has noted the rise of what he has termed “e-jihad” and “online
fatwas.”
In the western world, the relationship between the Internet and religion has been explored
in earlier Pew Internet & American Life studies, which have found that persons of faith
use the Internet to extend their congregational activities. This survey builds on those
earlier studies by focusing on how personal religious and spiritual uses of the Internet
may be replacing or complementing more tradition-oriented approaches to religion
online.
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Pa r t 2 .
Internet uses of the “online faithful”: Who are
they and what do they do online?
Measuring online religious and spiritual activities
Over time, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that survey respondents
tend to report their online behavior with more precision when prompted with a specific
set of activities in lieu of responding to a broad question about general types of online
pursuits.
For instance, it was our common practice to ask in surveys in 2000, 2001, and early 2002,
“Please tell me if you ever do any of the following when you go online. Do you ever get
health or medical information?” Throughout that period, we consistently found that about
60% of Internet users would answer “yes” to that single query. In December 2002, we
asked all Internet users a battery of questions about specific kinds of health-related
searches they might do online – for instance, get information about medical treatments, or
seek material about mental health, or browse for details about alternative medicine, or get
tips on fitness and diet issues. With the questions as reminders, some 80% of Internet
users recalled going online for a health-related topic and that substantially increased our
insights into the ways that the Internet was used in medical and health searches.
We saw a similar phenomenon when we asked about the use of the Internet when
interacting with government agencies. When people were asked several questions about
possible specific uses of the Internet for e-government matters, more of them recalled
times when they had gone online to connect with government.
With those experiences in mind, the Project worked with scholars from the University of
Colorado to devise survey questions that would explore a variety of ways that the Internet
might be used for religious or spiritual purposes.
These new findings build on the Project’s previous work on religion and the Internet, and
on qualitative research conducted at the University of Colorado. The Project’s previous
surveys have shown how the Internet has come to play a role in congregations and other
religious bodies, and how persons of faith incorporate Internet use into their practices
related to those faith groups. Stewart Hoover’s research has explored the relationship of
the Internet to the religious “seeking” practices of those within religious traditions, and
Lynn Schofield Clark has explored the significance of pass-along emails in the spiritual
lives of young people.
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 2. Internet uses of the “online faithful”: Who are they and what do they do
online?
This survey had two purposes. First, it was to ask about some religious and spiritual
activities that people might perform online. Rather than asking the single question about
whether a person went online to get religious and spiritual information, we asked about a
specific series of possible searches that someone might do and about the kinds of emails
she might send and receive.
Second, the survey focused on how
personal religious and spiritual uses
of the Internet replace or
complement more tradition-oriented
approaches to religion. We asked
Internet users about a range of
online activities related to religion
as experienced within institutional
settings and in practices outside of,
or complementary to, those
traditions. We found that the most
common uses could be described in
three
ways:
first,
activities
associated with traditional religious
institutions;
second,
personal
religious or spiritual practices; and
third, as information-seeking about
religious events.
Religious and spiritual uses of the Internet
128 million American adults use the Internet. This
table reports what percentage of those online
Americans have gone online for these purposes. In
all, 64% of Internet users said they had done at
least one of these activities.
Sent, received, or forwarded email with
spiritual content
38%
Sent an online greeting card for a
religious holiday such as Christmas,
Hanukah, or Ramadan
35%
Read online news accounts about
religious events/affairs
32%
Sought information on the Web about
how to celebrate holidays or other
significant religious events
Searched for places in their
communities where they could attend
religious services
21%
17%
Those questions were fielded in a Used email to plan a meeting for a
14%
national phone survey of 1,358 religious group
Internet users conducted between
Downloaded or listened online to music
11%
November 18 and December 14, with religious or spiritual themes
2003 and they yielded striking
results. The results revealed that Made or responded to a prayer request
7%
online
64% of America’s 128 million adult
Internet users – or, some 82 million Made a donation to a religious
7%
people – have employed the organization or charity
Internet for at least one of these Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14,
faith-related purposes. This is a 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%.
considerably higher record of online faith-related activity than the Project found when we
asked a broad question: “Do you ever get religious or spiritual information online?” In
November-December, 2002, the most recent survey where we employed that strategy,
30% of Internet users said “yes.”
The most common online activities among those in this study are news reading, the
sending, forwarding and receiving of email with religious or spiritual content, and the
sending of greeting cards for religious holidays (the latter number undoubtedly higher
than usual due to the fact that this survey was conducted in the midst of these three
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 2. Internet uses of the “online faithful”: Who are they and what do they do
online?
holiday periods). A smaller percentage reported going online for information or ideas
about celebrating holidays.
The online faithful are devout and relatively intense users of the Internet.
Demographically, the online faithful are more likely to be women with
high socio-economic profiles.
As a group, the 82 million people who use the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes
stand out in several ways compared to the rest of the online population. They are devout
and more likely to be connected to religious institutions and practices than other Internet
users. Half of the online faithful go to church at least once a week, compared to 41% of
all Internet users. Some 33% of the online faithful describe themselves as Evangelical,
compared to 29% of all Internet users. And some 54% of the online faithful describe
themselves as religious and spiritual.
The online faithful are somewhat more likely than the overall Internet population to be
women, to be white, to be between ages 50 and 64, to be college educated (49% have
college or graduate degrees), to be married, to live in households earning $75,000 or
more, and to live in the South and Midwest. The online faithful are less likely than the
overall Internet population to be between the ages of 18 and 29, to be minorities, to live
in households earning less than $30,000, or to live in the Northeast.
As a group, the online faithful are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of
the Internet population. On a typical day, 63% of them are online, compared to 54% of
the entire Internet population. Collectively, the online faithful have more online
experience than the overall Internet population. Some 56% of them have been online for
six years or longer, compared to 49% of the overall Internet population. Some 60% of the
online faithful have broadband connections somewhere in their life (at home or at work),
compared to 54% of all Internet users.
The online faithful are more likely to do personal spiritual activities on
the Internet than activities connected with traditional religious practices
or institutions.
Higher percentages of Internet users report online activities related to personal spirituality
and religiosity than activities more related to involvement in traditional religious
functions or organizations. For instance, 38% of Internet users reported forwarding
spiritual email to friends or acquaintances, while just 14% have used the Internet to plan a
meeting at their church or place of worship.
This challenges the assumption that the Internet would make it more likely for people to
leave churches in favor of more flexible online options. This study found that the
Internet does provide some people with sources of information, symbolic resources, and
opportunities for networking and interaction outside the boundaries of formal religious
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 2. Internet uses of the “online faithful”: Who are they and what do they do
online?
bodies or traditions. Yet it also found that the online faithful seem more interested in
augmenting their offline practices by using the Internet to express their own personal
faith and spirituality, as opposed to seeking something new or different in the online
environment.
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Pa r t 3 .
Information-seeking about religion: looking
“inside” and “outside”
For many of the online faithful, the Internet provides an efficient and convenient way to
handle the practical side of life in a religious organization. They use email to stay in touch
with church friends and plan meetings. They use online greeting card services. They learn
about local worship services by browsing the Web.
However, some are also interested in using the Internet as a religious education and
exploration tool. In this survey, we asked members of the online faithful if they ever go
online to seek or exchange information about their own religious faith or tradition or
about the faith or traditions of others. Some 28% of them said they had used the Internet
to seek or exchange information about their own religious faith or tradition, while 26%
said they had used the Internet to seek or exchange information about the religious faiths
or traditions of others. (Eighteen percent answered “yes” to both questions.)
In a follow up question about the motives of those who got information about others,
51% said they did this out of curiosity so as to find out about others’ beliefs, 13% said
they did it for purposes of their own spiritual growth, and 31% said both those reasons
were important to them.
Does the Internet aid those who are looking for inspiration or faith-related
resources outside of their religious tradition or church?
In order to learn about the Internet’s role in relation to conventional religion, we asked
the online faithful about their interest in other religions. For the past several decades,
individuals have come to exercise more and more authority over their own expressions of
faith, turning to sources other than their own traditions and clergy. A new
religious/spiritual sensibility, called “seeking” by sociologists such as Wade Clark Roof
and Robert Wuthnow, may well underlie these tendencies and it is thought that modern
means of communication are serving or exacerbating these developments in religion and
spirituality. Many have wondered whether the Internet is providing support for emerging
forms of religion that are outside the bounds of conventional religious institutions by
facilitating this kind of religious or spiritual “seeking.”
These data provide some interesting insight into these issues. Going online to attain
information about faiths other than one’s own may be one measure of this antiinstitutional trend. We found that 26% of the online faithful reported going online for
information about traditions other than their own, and 31% of them did so in part for their
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 3. Information-seeking about religion: looking “inside” and
“outside”
own spiritual growth (13% did so exclusively for this reason). This provides support for
the idea that for some, the Internet enables individuals to access a vastly enlarged realm
in which to engage in religious seeking. Yet the story does not end here.
To explore further the notion that the Internet might be involved in the evolution of a
more personal, less institutional orientation in religion, we collapsed our list of online
practices into three categories and found that over half of Internet users reported going
online for personal spiritual reasons.
Category 1 -- online activities related to personal spiritual or religious concerns. This
includes prayer requests, downloading or listening to music, sending faith-related
greeting cards, and using email for spiritual matters. Some 55% of online Americans
use the Internet these ways.
Category 2 -- online activities related to traditional institutional religion. This
includes, getting ideas for celebration of holidays, looking for places where
respondents can attend church services, making donations to a religious organization
or charity, and using email to plan church meetings. Some 36% of online Americans
use the Internet in these ways.
Category 3 -- online news seeking. Some 32% of Internet users go online for news
about religious events and affairs.
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Pa r t 4 .
Overall Internet use among those who have
different reasons for faith-related online
activities
If the online world is becoming a place where alternative or anti-institutional religious
uses and practices are emerging, we would expect to see some evidence of this in relation
to respondents’ Internet use. For instance, if we were to find that heavy Internet use was
associated with less conventional religion, this could support the idea that those who are
online more frequently are more likely to seek out online alternatives to traditional offline
religious practices. On the other hand, if conventionally religious people are as likely as
others to say that they use the Internet for religious or spiritual practices, this may
undermine the theory of distinct online and offline religious cultures. In that case, we
would want to explore the extent to which the Internet provides resources or networks
that contrast with or compete with those in an informants’ own traditions or experiences.
To test these ideas, all Internet users were divided into four categories according to
whether the term novice, middle, heavier, or heaviest best described their level of Internet
use. We then looked at whether or not there was a relationship between attendance at
religious services and level of Internet use.
Internet User Types and Attendance at Religious Services
Heavy Internet use does not seem to be linked with church attendance.
Once a week
Novice*
Middle**
Heavier***
Heaviest****
Once a month
11%
9
41
38
14%
4
39
42
Several times
per year
9%
7
45
38
Don’t attend
services
10%
8
40
43
* Online for less than two years and online for two years but do not go online daily.
** Online for three years but do not go online daily and online for two years and go online from home daily.
*** Online at least four years but do not go online from home daily and those online for three years and go online from home
daily.
**** Online for at least four years and go online daily.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%..
There appears to be little association between Internet involvement and attendance at
church. Nearly equal proportions of those who attend frequently and less frequently are
in the heaviest Internet use category.
Faith Online
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 4. Overall Internet use among those who have different reasons for faithrelated online activities
Does denomination make a difference in Internet use?
We then explored whether or not there was a relationship between level of Internet use
and the tendency for people to identify with a particular religious tradition. When looking
across the most prominent religious identification groups, we found a slight tendency for
Protestants (both overall and the Evangelical subgroup) to be lighter Internet users than
Catholics or Jews.
Religious Identification and Internet Activities
There does not seem to be a link between denomination and Internet use.
Novice*
Middle**
Heavier***
Heaviest****
13%
8%
40%
38%
Catholic
9
7
47
36
Jewish
-
-
48
45
Other
12
7
40
39
None
8
16
39
42
Evangelical
15
10
40
34
Protestant
* Online for less than two years and online for two years but do not go online daily.
** Online for three years but do not go online daily and online for two years and go online from home daily.
*** Online at least four years but do not go online from home daily and those online for three years and go online from home
daily.
**** Online for at least four years and go online daily.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%..
Does a person’s spiritual profile matter online?
Respondents were further asked to identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious,”
“religious but not spiritual,” “both spiritual and religious,” or “neither spiritual nor
religious” as a measure of identification with non-traditional religious practices. This
question was designed to tap into the possibility that some people might wish to identify
themselves as “spiritual” in contrast to the more conventional designation of “religious.”
Online religious seekers might be expected to be heavier Internet users who self-identify
as spiritual but not religious.
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 4. Overall Internet use among those who have different reasons for faithrelated online activities
Internet User Types, Religion and Spirituality
Among the online faithful, those who are “spiritual but not religious” are slightly heavier Internet
users
What users say about their
Middle**
Heavier***
Heaviest****
Novice*
own faith life
Spiritual, but not religious
Religious, but not spiritual
Religious and spiritual
Neither religious nor
spiritual
11
17
10
4
9
10
43
39
42
41
35
37
6
15
26
51
* Online for less than two years and online for two years but do not go online daily.
** Online for three years but do not go online daily and online for two years and go online from home daily.
*** Online at least four years but do not go online from home daily and those online for three years and go online from home daily.
**** Online for at least four years and go online daily.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%..
There appears to be a tendency for those who identify themselves as spiritual but not
religious to be heavier Internet users than others, although the difference is rather small at
about five percentage points. Consistent with the earlier finding, those who are neither
spiritual nor religious are the heaviest Internet users.
It is notable that neither attendance, religious self-identification, nor the category of
“spiritual but not religious” seems to have a clear relationship to Internet use. Nearly
equal proportions among the various categories of religious behavior, identity, and belief
are heavy users of the Internet (with the exception of the relatively small margin held by
those who are “spiritual but not religious” over others in Internet use).
These findings do little to confirm previous speculations that the Internet holds special
appeal for those spiritual seekers looking for alternatives to conventional religious
practice. If this were the case, we would expect such seekers (those who call themselves
“spiritual but not religious”) to be more involved Internet users. But these findings show
no strong tendency in that direction.
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Pa r t 5 .
Religiously-oriented Internet use among
different religious and spiritual profiles
Church attendance is associated with online spiritual seeking.
There is no strong relationship between Internet use and religious self-identification with
either Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Evangelical backgrounds, or no faith tradition. Yet
interesting differences emerged when we looked for relationships between frequency of
church attendance and the reasons that people go online for faith-related purposes.
Church Attendance and Internet Activities
Personal religious or spiritual activities are the most popular ones online
Attend church at least
once a week
Once a month
Several times per
year
Don’t attend services
Those who get
religion news
online
Those who use the
Internet for personal
religious and spiritual
purposes
Those who use the
Internet for
institutional religious
and spiritual reasons
39%
67%
51%
36
56
45
27
50
26
23
38
16
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%.
Sixty-seven percent of respondents who attend religious services weekly or more report
engaging in at least one of the more personally-oriented Internet behaviors. The most
frequent church attenders are also the most likely to be interested in religion news. What
is particularly interesting is that the personally-oriented behaviors – sending, receiving,
forwarding spiritual or religious email, sending an e-greeting card, or making a prayer
request online – are more popular than either the more institutional behaviors or news
interest across all categories of attendance.
Earlier, we noted that we found no relationship between church attendance and overall
Internet use. This means that it is not just those who are online more frequently who
engage in these practices, but rather, these practices are appealing to people across all of
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Part 5. Religiously-oriented Internet use among different religious and spiritual
profiles
our categories of religion and spirituality and across all levels of Internet use. We did see
some differences in the appeal of these practices among differing religious affiliations,
but the differences were slight.
Denominations show some differences in online seeking activities.
Protestants are more likely than Catholics to seek out religion news, express their
religious or spiritual beliefs personally, or engage in practices related to institutions of
religion, and Evangelical Protestants were particularly likely to do these things. Sixty
percent of Protestants and 69% of Evangelicals engage in the more personal behaviors,
while fewer Catholics report doing so. Jews are more interested in religion news than
Protestants in general, but Evangelicals show the highest level of interest in religion news
among Protestants.
Religious Identification and Internet Activities
Evangelicals and other Protestants are the most involved in the personally-oriented
online activities
Those who get
religion news online
Those who use the
Internet for personal
religious and spiritual
purposes
Those who use the
Internet for
institutional religious
and spiritual reasons
35%
60%
41%
Catholic
32
51
34
Jewish
38
54
54
Other
28
55
37
None
22
29
12
Evangelical
41
69
49
Protestant
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%
Faith profiles make a difference in spiritually-related Internet use.
What about the persons who self-identified as “spiritual but not religious?” Are they
more likely than others to engage in the more personally-oriented faith behaviors online?
Clearly, the spiritual but not religious online “seekers” are more likely to employ the
Internet for personal religious or spiritual behaviors than to go online for either news or
for reasons related to religious institutions. Yet what is particularly interesting is that
when we compare this group with those who consider themselves both spiritual and
religious, those who are both spiritual and religious are more likely by 15 percentage
points to engage in personal religious/spiritual behaviors.
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Part 5. Religiously-oriented Internet use among different religious and spiritual
profiles
These findings suggest that some of the conventional wisdom about the Internet’s role in
fostering religious “seeking” may be misguided. To elaborate on what was said earlier
regarding assumptions about those who were thought to use the Internet for spiritual
seeking, we might have expected that the demographic categories most involved with the
Internet—higher educated, higher income, and non-minorities—would be the most likely
to eschew traditional religion and engage in spiritual “seeking” online.
Instead, the results of this survey seem to point in another direction. While the Internet
does provide a range of opportunities for individuals to express themselves in religious or
spiritual terms, these online behaviors seem to be as much a part of the online experience
for those within traditional categories of religious self-identification as beyond them.
Religion, Spirituality and Internet Activities
Those who are spiritual and religious are the most likely to use the Internet for personal
religious or spiritual purposes
What users say about their
own faith life
Those who get
religion news online
Those who use the
Internet for personal
religious and spiritual
purposes
Those who use the
Internet for
institutional religious
and spiritual reasons
Spiritual, but not religious
34%
51%
31%
Spiritual, but not religious
22
42
26
Religious and spiritual
36
66
47
Neither
13
28
10
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%.
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Pa r t 6 .
Online religious “seeking”
Connections to church matter to the online faithful as they seek spiritual
material on the Internet.
One potential difference we have not yet explored is whether or not online spiritual
“seekers” are more likely than those in traditional religious organizations to seek out
information about a variety of religions.
People who attend religious services most frequently are more likely than others to seek
information online about religion. They are also more likely to seek information about
their own religion online than they are to seek information about other religions. This is
not surprising, as we might expect that those who attend religious services most
frequently would be more loyal to and interested in their own traditions than in the
traditions of others. Similarly, those who attend less frequently are more likely to seek out
information about other religions rather than information about their own.
This means that less frequent church attenders do express interest in other religions. At
the same time, though, those who attend most frequently are somewhat more likely than
others to seek out information about religions other than their own, making them more
interested in all religions than those who attend less frequently. This undermines the
notion that online “seeking” of information about other religions would be more
exclusively a practice among less frequent attenders of offline religious services. There
are also a few patterns of the relationship between “seeking” and religious selfidentification that are worth noting.
Church Attendance and Seeking Information About Other Religions
and One’s Own Faith
Frequent attenders are more interested than others in online information about religion
Attend church at least once a week
Once a month
Several times per year
Don’t attend services
Seek information about
own religion
Seek information about
other religions
37%
25
20
15
30%
21
28
17
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%.
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Part 6. Online religious “seeking”
The survey found that those who attend religious services less frequently were actually
less likely to seek information on other traditions for their own growth (only 13%
reported that reason for doing so), and more likely to say that they looked at information
on other traditions just to find out about them (61%). Thus, those who are less frequent
attenders also seem to be less interested in religious and spiritual practices in general than
those who attend religious services more frequently.
Church Attendance and Seeking Practices
The most frequent attenders are the most likely to seek material about others’ faiths to
help them in their own faith journeys.
Seek information
about other faiths
for personal
growth
Seek information
about other faiths
just to find out about
them
Both
16%
42%
36%
8
74
11
Several times per year
13
61
26
Don’t attend services
9
56
33
Attend church at least once a
week
Once a month
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%.
This is consistent with the recent research of sociologists Penny Long Marler and Kirk
Hadaway. They have argued that the trend in U.S. religion is not in a change from an
orientation to religious traditions to a “seeker” orientation outside of those traditions, but
for those within religious traditions to be more “seeker” oriented and those outside of
such traditions to be less interested in religion or spirituality altogether. Thus, Internet
users who are not involved in religious organizations are less likely to be “seekers” who
are finding new forms of religion on the Internet, and more likely to be as uninterested in
religion online as they are offline.
Denomination makes a difference.
Catholics are the least likely to go online for information about religion either about their
own tradition or about the traditions of others. Among both Protestants and Catholics,
equal percentages report looking online for information about their own faith and that of
others. Both Jews and Evangelicals reported more interest in looking for information
about their own religion than for information about other religions. Those who profess
no religious identification are — not surprisingly — more likely to seek information
about other religions.
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Part 6. Online religious “seeking”
Religious Identification and Religious Information Seeking
Catholics are the least interested in online information about either their own faith
or the faiths of others
Seek information about own
religion
Seek information about other
religions
30%
29%
Catholic
20
19
Jewish
38
30
Other
38
27
None
27
37
Evangelical
36
33
Protestant
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of
error is ±3%.
What they seek often depends on the nature of their spirituality.
Those who are spiritual but not religious report a slightly greater tendency to look online
for information about faiths other than their own, but a higher percentage of those who
self-identify as both spiritual and religious seek information about the faiths of others.
Faith Profiles and Online Information
Those who are “spiritual and religious” are the most interested in online information
about both their own faith and the faiths of others
What users say about their own
faith life
Seek information about own
religion
Seek information about
other religions
Spiritual, but not religious
22%
26%
Religious, but not spiritual
23
17
Religious and spiritual
34
29
Neither
15
19
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%.
We therefore looked at whether or not these two groups reported different reasons for
why they sought out information on the traditions of others. One might expect that those
who self-identified as “spiritual but not religious” would be more likely to say that they
sought out information on other religious traditions for their own growth, rather than just
to find out about those other traditions.
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Part 6. Online religious “seeking”
The survey found that those who self-identified as “spiritual but not religious” and those
who said that they were both spiritual and religious seemed to seek information on other
traditions for their own growth in about equal proportions. Like those who were both
spiritual and religious, the majority of those who called themselves “spiritual but not
religious” reported going online for information about others’ beliefs “just to find out.”
We then wondered whether those who attended religious services less frequently might
be more interested in seeking out information on others’ traditions for their own growth.
Faith profiles and the Reasons Online Seekers Get Information about Other
Religions
Those who are “spiritual but not religious” are more likely to seek information about other
religions “just to find out about them” rather than for their own spiritual growth
What users say about their
own faith life
Seek information about other
faiths for personal growth
Seek information about
other faiths just to find out
about them
Both
Spiritual, but not religious
15%
57%
26%
Religious, but not spiritual
-
81
19
15
45
35
-
82
18
Religious and spiritual
Neither
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%. .
Where you live seems to make a difference in what you seek.
Previous research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has shown interesting
ways that urban and rural Internet users differ. The next two tables explore these
differences with reference to online religious/spiritual activities and online “seeking.”
Community Type and Faith Online
Rural Internet users are more interested in information about their own faith
Seek information about own
religion
Seek information about
other religions
25%
19%
Suburban
30
28
Urban
26
27
Rural
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%.
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Part 6. Online religious “seeking”
The survey found that a higher percentage of rural Internet users engage in the more
personal religious/spiritual online activities than suburban and urban users. This may be
explained in part by the fact that a higher percentage of rural residents identify as
Evangelicals when compared with those who live in suburban or rural areas. The table
above considers the reasons urban and rural users give to explain their motivation for
going online for religious information.
Rural residents are much less likely to go online for information about other religions
than are their urban and suburban cohorts.
Why the Online Faithful in Different Areas Get Religious Material
Rural Internet users are more likely to seek out information about other faiths “just to
find out about them”
Seek information
about other faiths for
personal growth
Seek information
about other faiths just
to find out about
them
Both
30%
61%
35%
Suburban
32
53
36
Urban
33
54
37
Rural
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Nov. 18- Dec. 14, 2003 survey. N=1,358 Internet users. Margin of error is
±3%.
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Pa r t 7 .
Conclusions
These findings provide insight into the relationship between religion and the Internet.
First, this report calls into question the presumption that there is a widespread practice of
online religious “seeking” among those who are outside of traditional religions. The
study found some evidence that there were people who did use the Internet to find
information about traditions other than their own, but “seeking” is clearly a relatively
minor phenomenon when compared with the broader range of religious beliefs and
behaviors that are expressed online. Second and on a related note, the study found
evidence that the online environment is facilitating interactions of a religious or spiritual
nature for a variety of people who are actively engaged in traditional religious contexts
and bodies.
This second point is actually the bigger and more interesting story. The study found that
those we have termed the “online faithful” are not using the Internet solely to learn about
or interact with others within their own faith groups, nor are they using the Internet
primarily to facilitate congregational business. Members of this group are most interested
in using the Internet to express their own personal religious or spiritual beliefs (as
measured in this study by the passing along of religious or spiritual emails, the sending of
e-greeting cards, and the soliciting of prayer requests). To a lesser extent, they are also
interested in seeking information about their own traditions and about the traditions of
others.
The subset of the “online faithful” that have self-identified as Evangelical are even more
likely to engage in these personal expressions of faith than those from other religious
traditions. They are even more likely to seek information about traditions other than their
own. Across the board, those who regularly attend religious services use the Internet for
religious and spiritual purposes more frequently than those who attend religious services
less regularly.
Rather than providing a safe haven for religious experimentation for those disaffected
from religious traditions, therefore, the Internet seems to be fostering the development of
religious and spiritual practices that are nonetheless at some distance from the traditions
of organized religion. These practices are more personally expressive and more
individually oriented and, consistent with contemporary research on trends in American
religion, they are more likely to take place among those who have a commitment to
traditional religious organizations than among those outside of those traditions.
There are several potential implications to these findings. It is possible that those
currently affiliated with religious institutions will maintain a foothold in both the online
and offline worlds, remaining loyal to their offline affiliations while also continuing to
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Pew Internet & American Life Project
Conclusions
use the Internet for more personal expressions of their faith. On the other hand, we may
see an integration occur between the two, with offline traditions becoming more
personally oriented and online practices more fully recognized and integrated into the
lives of religious organizations and traditions.
While the practices of the online faithful may not result in a distinct social reality, it is
clear that the online seeking and networking that we see evidence of here are serving to
exacerbate the ongoing challenges that are currently faced by what we think of as
traditional religion. It may be that as individuals come to exercise more and more
autonomy in matters of faith, the Internet may then come to play an increasingly
important role in providing resources for seeking that takes them outside of formal
religious traditions.
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M e t hodology
This Pew Internet & American Life Project report is based on the findings of a daily
tracking survey on Americans' use of the Internet and an online survey about Internet
health resources.
Telephone interviews were conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between
November 18 and December 14, 2003, among a sample of 2,013 adults, 18 and older. For
results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error
attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
For results based Internet users (n=1,358) the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3
percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical
difficulties in conducting telephone surveys may introduce some error or bias into the
findings of opinion polls.
The sample for this survey is a random digit sample of telephone numbers selected from
telephone exchanges in the continental United States. The random digit aspect of the
sample is used to avoid “listing” bias and provides representation of both listed and
unlisted numbers (including not-yet-listed numbers). The design of the sample achieves
this representation by random generation of the last two digits of telephone numbers
selected on the basis of their area code, telephone exchange, and bank number.
New sample was released daily and was kept in the field for at least five days. This
ensures that complete call procedures were followed for the entire sample. Additionally,
the sample was released in replicates to make sure that the telephone numbers called are
distributed appropriately across regions of the country. At least 10 attempts were made to
complete an interview at every household in the sample. The calls were staggered over
times of day and days of the week to maximize the chances of making contact with a
potential respondent. Interview refusals were re-contacted at least once in order to try
again to complete an interview. All interviews completed on any given day were
considered to be the final sample for that day. The overall response rate was 31.3%.
Non-response in telephone interviews produces some known biases in survey-derived
estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population,
and these subgroups are likely to vary also on questions of substantive interest. In order to
compensate for these known biases, the sample data are weighted in analysis. The
demographic weighting parameters are derived from a special analysis of the most
recently available Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (March 2003). This
analysis produces population parameters for the demographic characteristics of adults age
18 or older, living in households that contain a telephone. These parameters are then
compared with the sample characteristics to construct sample weights. The weights are
derived using an iterative technique that simultaneously balances the distribution of all
weighting parameters.
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