New study links the spread of the internet to a global decline in religious identity
As internet access spreads across the globe, formal religious affiliation tends to fall. A new study of 81 countries links three decades of digital expansion to a steady decline in traditional religious identity.
A recent study published in Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review suggests that the spread of the internet is linked to a global decline in religious identity. The research, led by Miran Lavrič from the University of Maribor, examined the relationship between internet access and religious affiliation across 81 countries between 1990 and 2022.
The study found that as internet usage grows within a country, religious affiliation and self-identification tend to decrease. This finding challenges long-standing theories of secularization, which often attribute the decline in religious importance to modernization, such as increased wealth, education, and urbanization. While some scholars have argued that digital communication could also act as a secularizing force, the evidence has been limited and methodologically weak.
This new study, however, provides a more comprehensive examination of the issue, using both national internet usage statistics and data from the World Values Survey to construct a six-item index measuring average religiosity. The research indicates that the internet may be playing a significant role in the secularization of societies worldwide.
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