Online Religion

Last week’s discuss of Joshua Meyrowitz’s “No Sense of Place” provoked thoughts and questions about the influence of social media on religion. While my church actively uses social media – sharing links to content via Twitter, connecting people on Facebook, and providing studies on blogs – many churches have yet to embrace the technology.

Meyrowitz tells us that “we cannot have some of the forces for social change brought about by electronic media without having all, or most, of the forces.” I interpret this statement to mean that we can’t have the advantages our new technology brings us without the disadvantages, too. We discussed this earlier in the semester in regards to Postman’s evaluation of technology allowing us to gain something, but at the same time, lose something.

Four years ago, I examined the topic of online religion in my senior thesis in Sociology at Alma College. In light of our discussion last week, I thought it would be pertinent to share some of my findings.

I conducted interviews with 12 undergraduate students at Alma College who were active participants in religious campus organizations. I asked students about their use of the Internet to further their faith. In my research, I discovered three primary themes. The following are excerpts from my senior thesis:

• Information. First off, undergraduate students’ use of religious resources online supports the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s approach to the Internet as a vast ecclesiastical library. Religion Online is the provision of information regarding doctrine, political organization, and belief. This is clearly a main appeal for undergraduate students

• Spiritual Practices. Many students used online materials as spiritual practices. This was discussed in the literature review as online religion when an invitation is given to visitors of religious websites to engage in some dimension of religious life. The students who use online religion apply it as a supplemental tool to enhance their commitment to their beliefs and campus religious organizations.

• Online vs. Face-to-Face Community. The last theme which emerged from the data depicted a tension between online community and face-to-face community. This tension revolved around the belief that face-to-face community was much more authentic than online community. The subjects each seemed to possess a personal standard of acceptable and unacceptable online religious interaction, while at the same time becoming personally involved in online religious resources themselves.

I feel these themes remain applicable to online religion today, but I believe the Internet and Web 2.0 have evolved since I completed by research in 2007. This could possibly be a continued focus of study in my graduate work.

If you are interested in reading more of my thesis, I would be happy to share it with you – all 42 pages of it. J