More Internet use, less religiosity

Religious faith could suffer as a result of regular Internet use.

Religion has been present in human daily life for thousands of years before the birth of civilizations. since several thousand years before the birth of civilizations. The different forms of religiosity are based on rituals and symbols, and these elements are already present in cave times and even in Neanderthals.

However, although for millennia we have lived in a more or less similar way, in recent decades our species has been shaken by a series of technological and cultural revolutions that have transformed society as a whole. And, as major material changes also generate changes in ideas, religiosity has been transformed. In fact, a recent study indicates that something as commonplace as the use of the Internet is related to a lower level of religious belief. Internet is associated with a reduced belief in religion..

More fondness for the Internet, less religious sentiment.

Religiosity is a very complex thing, and across different human societies there are great differences not only in terms of mainstream religions, but also in the degree of religiosity. While decades ago atheism and agnosticism were marginal, today they are increasingly common in Western societies, especially in those countries considered "first world" where there is a strong welfare state and extreme poverty is relatively small.

However, beyond the place where one lives and the social class to which one belongs, there are other factors related to believing more or less in a religion, and it seems that the use of the Internet is one of them. Paul K. McLure, author of the study, based the research on data obtained from a national survey in the United States of America, the Baylor Religion Survey, which collected information from some 1,700 adults residing in that country. Among the items in this questionnaire, included questions on the level of religiosity and faith, and habitual (or not) use of the Internet..

Although the use of this virtual tool was associated with less contact with religion, this link had nuances. For example, it was not related to the frequency of participation in specific religious activities, such as weddings or baptisms, but to the intensity of religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

In addition, those who spent more hours connected to the network were less likely to hold that only one religion was true and the rest were not. In other words, they tended to treat all religions more equally, as if they were the same. Interestingly, the same was not true for time spent watching television..

Why is this?

It should be kept in mind that this research has found correlations, not a relationship that not a relationship that necessarily has to be cause-effect.. It may be that surfing the Internet more reduces the intensity of religiosity, but it may also be that less religious people surf more (although the study isolated the influence of social class, race, educational level, political ideology and other important elements). However, McLure believes there is reason to believe that the Internet has had an impact on the way we position ourselves in relation to religion.

Tendency to isolation

Frequent use of the Internet can lead to a certain isolation and to adopting a detached lifestyle when not working. Considering that religion is almost always based on shared rituals, this can affect beliefs: not being habitually exposed to these customs in the family or in community weakens the importance that religiosity has for a person.

However, as we have seen, these people are no longer absent from important events of a religious nature; in any case, they would not go to those of lesser importance: family prayers and other frequent rituals.

Bias towards rational thinking

Another feature of the Internet is that it contains a virtually infinite amount of information. Although we do not attach much importance to it nowadays, it is an exceptional thing that we are able to singlehandedly access to all kinds of contents that allow us to learn about all subjects in a relatively autonomous way. in a relatively autonomous way.

This means that those questions that were apparently unanswerable before, giving free rein to speculations based on mysticism and magical thinking, can now be answered in a matter of minutes thanks to search engines such as Google. Think, for example, of the possibility of understanding how the evolution of species works, going beyond the caricature of "we come from monkeys". If there is no mystery, the sense that "there is something more" diminishes.

Religions remain strong

Although the use of the Internet is becoming more and more widespread, and although the proportion of the non-believing population is growing, there is no doubt that religions are still in very good health. It is unlikely that our technology-related habits will simply make them disappear.