Religion and the Internet

Pew Internet & American Life Project looked at Internet use including religious use and here were their conclusions:

• 30% of Internet users have sought religious information online as of November 2002.
• That represents growth of 94%, from 18 million who had sought religious information as of March 2000, to 35 million who had done such searches as of November 2002.
• More online women than online men have done religious searches on the Web.
• African-American users are more likely than other groups to have searched for religious information online, especially African-American women.

Is this a good thing? Only time will tell. Americans have often been very individualistic. One thing that religion provides is a community. An earlier study noted:

Similarly, solitary activities like mailing prayer requests and downloading religious music are also very popular pastimes for religion surfers (38% have done each of these activities), while more socially-oriented activities such as seeking spiritual guidance via email (21%) or participating in a religious chat room (10%) have not been as widespread.

If this is representative, then the Internet religious experience will be an attenuated one compared with the off-line, traditional, one.