Religion and spirituality online

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Religion and spirituality online

• Being Prepared
• Gospelcom.net conference
• Lee Rainie Director
• 9.15.04

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Home media capacity - 1974

• Product Route to home Display Local
  storage
• TV stations phone TV Cassette/ 8-track
• broadcast TV radio
• broadcast radio stereo Vinyl album
• Local news mail
• Advertising newspaper delivery phone
• Radio Stations
• non-electronic

Tom Wolzein, Sanford C. Bernstein Co
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Home media capacity now

• Product Route to home Display Local
  storage
• cable VCR
• TV stations phone/DSL TV
• Info wireless phone radio DVD
• broadcast TV PC
• Cable Nets broadcast radio stereo server /
  Tivo (PVR)
• AOL/MSFT satellite monitor
• Local news mail headphones PC
• express delivery pager CD/CD ROM
• Peer-to-peer subcarriers / WIFI cell phone MP3
  player / iPod
• Advertising newspaper delivery
  phone pagers
• PDA/Palm cable box
• Radio Stations game console game console
• Satellite radio non-electronic

Tom Wolzein, Sanford C. Bernstein Co
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Pace of change for digital power ACCELERATES into
the future

• Computing power doubles every 18 months
  Moores Law
• Communication power doubles every 9 months with
  compression and fiber-capacity improvements
  Gilders law
• Storage power doubles every 12 months disk law
• Audience power of networks grows exponentially
  Metcalfs law replaces Sarnoffs law -- Value of
  a network is N2 where Nnumber of nodes
• Group formation grows super-exponentially
  Reeds law -- The capacity of a network to form
  groups is 2n where Nnumber of people

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The internet is the norm but its use is not
universal
63
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Nine digital divides persist

• Age
• Employment status students rule!
• Socio-economic status
• Disability
• Language English rules!
• Community type
• Parental status
• Race and ethnicity
• Personal outlook trust, hope, and efficacy

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Broadband adoption
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Expectations are skyrocketing

• News
• Government information and services
• Health information
• Products and services
• People to meet
• Communities I want to join or start
• The information I want to create and distribute

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The e-faith universe 82 million (1)

• 58 million have sought information online about
  their own faith
• 51 million have sought information about others
  faiths
• 48 million used email for spiritual/religious
  discussion
• 45 million send religiously-oriented greeting
  cards
• 41 million read news about religious events
• 27 million sought information about how to
  celebrate holidays or other religious events
• 22 million have looked for places to attend church

Source Pew Internet Survey Nov-Dec 2003 and June
2004 comScore Media Metrix data in red
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The e-faith universe 82 million (2)

• 19 million say they belong to online religious
  communities
• 18 million used email to plan a meeting for a
  religious group
• 12 million have participated in online activities
  of their local church
• 11 million have downloaded religious music or
  listened to it online
• 10 million have done devotional work online
• 9 million have made donations to religious
  organizations
• 8 million have purchased religious goods and
  services
• 6 million have participated in online worship

Source Pew Internet Survey Nov-Dec 2003 and June
2004 comScore Media Metrix data in red
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Other activities of the online faithful (3)
Source Pew Internet Survey of 500 religious
seekers July-Aug 2001
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E-faith compared to what else online?
Most popular activities
Core religious activities
Buzz activities
Religion online
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Demographics of the faithful
High proportions of these users are online
faithful
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Public faith life of the online faithful
High proportions of these users are online
faithful
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The faith-based thoughts and activities of the
online faithful
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Internet life of the online faithful
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Purpose of their online activity

• Half of the religious and spiritual activity we
  track among users is related to faith-seeking,
  devotional, and faith-enriching endeavors
• 28 of the online faithful seek and exchange
  views on their own faiths
• 25 seek and exchange views on others faiths
• A third is logistics of faith gatherings --
  planning, preparation for services and classes,
  meetings
• The rest is mixture of news-gathering, issues
  research
• A very small fraction is tied to personal
  crisis-oriented searches or finding God
• 2 say their used of the internet has greatly
  improved their spiritual lives

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Potential for connection and evangelism

• Anonymity is precious to many online seekers
• I look up things I dont want to ask other
  people.
• The internet as an expert friend Dr. Google
  and Pastor Yahoo
• The best online communities are the ones that
  have face-to-face encounters at the center

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The techno-change that is coming

• Search will get much better
• Location-aware technology emerges
• Appliances with IP addresses are everywhere
• Radio Frequency Identification devices (RFID)
• New power for cell phones
• Voice recognition eases use of computers
• We will enter the Era of Ubiquitous Computing

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The new world evangelists will face

• People do online what matters to them offline
  your core audience is one that is very familiar
  to you
• The relation between people and institutions is
  being reshaped
• Interactivity matters people like to create
  content (44 have) and they like to give feedback
• Velocity of information matters this is the era
  of smart mobs
• This is also era of daily me allow people to
  customize information
• Influentials matter more and more this is the
  age of word-of-mouth endorsements

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Final plea What you can do for a high-tech
culture

• Help provide access to technology and mentoring
  especially among older citizens
• Help us figure out the new rules of the road
  about information whats protected, whats not
• Help create new social norms define how it is
  proper to behave with new information
  technologies (privacy and surveillance)
• Help in the conversation about where new
  technologies can bring grace to life and show
  ways how to escape the new troubles of a
  high-tech life (Sabbath-keeping)

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About me

• Lee Rainie
• Director
• Pew Internet American Life Project
• 1100 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 710
• Washington, DC 20036
• 202-557-3463
• lrainie_at_pewinternet.org