The ‘ Catholic Insider’ takes a look at how the internet is used for relious purposes in the United States.
FT December 2005: Articles: “According to a 2004 Pew survey, 64 percent of Internet-using Americans—82 million people—say they use the web for religious purposes. They are more likely to be female, white, middle aged, and college educated. Catholics and Jews tend to use the Internet slightly more heavily than Protestants. Half of these users report that they attend church at least once a week.
Some of the pious web-surfers keep up with religious news (32 percent), some look for places to worship (17 percent), some use the Internet to plan religious group meetings (14 percent), and some to donate to charity (7 percent). At the same time, the Pew study claims, “the Internet seems to be fostering the development of religious and spiritual practices that are . . . more personally expressive and individually oriented.” Thus 11 percent of religious Internet users are going online to download spiritual music, 35 percent are sending online greeting cards, and 38 percent—the largest cohort—are simply passing along “email with spiritual content.””
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http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0512/articles/last.html
