Net Users Seeking More Religion Info
by Jason Collum
March 11, 2004
(AgapePress) - More than a third of all Americans who are connected to the Internet have used it to access religious and spiritual information, a recent Pew Research Center study shows. Moreover, there has been a significant increase in the daily use of the Internet to access religious information.This compares with 40 percent of American Internet users who have searched the web for political information, and 66 percent who have sought health and medical data. But, while the number of these last two search categories increased 57 percent and 59 percent respectively between March 2000 and November 2002, what researchers call "religion surfers" almost doubled in number over the same period, from 18 million to 35 million -- an increase of 94 percent.
The growth appears to be only slightly linked to the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States. An earlier Pew poll accounted for the "bounce," or heavy upturn in religious interest following the attack. The most recent research found that not only has the interest in religion held since September 11, but it increased 25 percent during the subsequent 15 months.
The poll found Internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 to be the least interested in searching out religious material (24 percent), while those age 30-49 were the most interested (33 percent).
Jason Collum, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a staff writer for AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. This article appeared in the March 2004 issue.
