Spirit Research

Study across 81 countries links wider internet access to falling religious identity

A cross-national study finds that as internet access spreads within a country, religious affiliation and self-identification as religious tend to fall, according to PsyPost, which reports the findings appeared in Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review.

The research, led by Miran Lavrič, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maribor, tested whether growing internet use predicts secularization, the historical decline in religion's social and personal importance, across many countries over several decades, PsyPost reports.

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What the 81-country analysis found#

The study, titled 'Internet Diffusion and Religious Decline: Evidence from 81 Countries, 1990-2022,' drew on data from the World Values Survey and examined whether internet growth in each country between 1990 and 2022 was followed by changes in religiosity, measured across six items, Deseret News reports.

'Internet penetration is strongly and negatively associated with religiosity,' the researchers wrote, adding that 'over time, higher internet use is consistently associated with lower religiosity,' according to Deseret News.

Institutional belonging and self-identification as religious took the biggest hit, while the effect on ritual attendance and confidence in churches was 'smaller and often statistically insignificant,' Deseret News reports the researchers found.

Belief and belonging move at different speeds#

PsyPost reports that links between internet use and time-intensive practices, such as attending religious services or considering God a central value, showed less strength and consistency than the links to identity and affiliation, suggesting digital connectivity erodes religious labels faster than daily habits among those who remain observant.

The researchers noted 'nontrivial' measurement issues because the World Values Survey was conducted at irregular intervals with inconsistent geographic coverage across different time periods, Deseret News reports.

A separate 32-year survey of first-year biology students at UNSW Sydney found belief that a god had a role in human origins fell from 60% in 1986 to 29% in 2017, while the share convinced a god had no role rose from 25% to 62% over the same period, ScienceDaily reports.

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