Between 1990 and 2010, 25 million Americans lost their religion.
At the same time, they also began spending 400 million hours per day on the internet.
Coincidence?
I don't know.......
Hey everyone, Laci Green here for DNews.
As religiosity in America continues to fall at a pretty dramatic rate, scientists have
been asking: huh?
WHYYYY???
In a new study published by MIT's Technology Review, the findings are a little...SHOCKING.
Brace yourself.
They've found that the internet itself may be responsible for the decline of faith.
Using the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, computer scientist Allen Downey
tracked the religious affiliation of thousands of Americans against other variables like
religious upbringing, income, education, and...how much time you spend online.
Here's what he found.
The strongest predictor of religious affiliation was being raised in that religion.
So, if you grew up Catholic or whatever, this is the best predictor of being Catholic as
an adult.
Downey's statistics suggest that similarly, more people are being raised without a strong
religious affiliation.
This is responsible for about 25% of the drop in religiosity.
Another 5% of the drop is attributed to the rise in college education, which has been
happening over the same period.
Those with a higher education are less likely to call themselves religious.
And then.... the controversial portion...he found the second big drop of 25% is directly
correlated with time spent online, a category of person which was basically non-existent
in the 80s.
Which is a really interesting thing to think about.
Could the internet really be a catalyst for people losing their faith?
Apparently, yeah!
But it should be noted that this is a CORRELATION, not a causation - a scientific mantra that
must be repeated ad nauseum.
Basically: we can't conclude that the internet CAUSES people to lose their faith just yet,
but we can definitely observe a strong pattern that's occurring here.
What might the internet have to do with it?
One theory is that the internet makes it easy for people with very different beliefs to
connect personally, to communicate and challenge the strength of their beliefs.
Being more exposed to other ideologies also breaks people out of the insulated bubble
of their own physical communities, where that wasn't possible before the web.
The internet also provides a vast body of information about all different types of belief
systems -- which creates more of a demand to question your own.
Of those belief systems people are getting more information about is a non-religious
worldview, which is becoming a more well-known and accessible alternative to more traditional
belief systems.
It's all very interesting to me -- and even moreso that there's still about 50% of the
religiosity drop that is unaccounted for.
Down below (On our facebook page), what do you think?
Will the internet make atheists of us all?
Or could the internet be used to promote religious faith as well?
Thanks for joining me folks, I'll see you next time with more science updates!