Background

Although there is a growing body of research on the nature and content of digital religion, we still know little about the prevalence of digital religious and spiritual practices among different populations in North America. To what extent do digital technologies play a complementary role to in-person religious and spiritual activities only, or do they also reach out to and provide important spaces for new segments of the population removed from more conventional forms of organized religion?

Purpose

The goal is to answer this research question and to explore the prevalence of different types of digital religion practices specifically among young adult Millennials in both the U.S. and Canada. Three contrasting hypotheses are tested: that digital religion practices are prevalent among large segments of the Millennial population and are part of a wider turn towards individual spiritualization (H₁); that digital religion practices are another set of religiosity indicators showing signs of a secular transition among Millennials (H₂); or that both trends are occurring in tandem, in that some Millennials are practising digital religion, mostly but not exclusively tied to in-person religious activities and socialization (H₃).

Methods

To test these hypotheses, we generate a series of descriptive and logit regression statistical analyses using novel and high-quality 2019 Millennial Trends Survey data from both Canada and the U.S.

Results

We find that (1) digital religion as measured in this study is a phenomenon present among many Millennials, although it is also not present among all or a vast majority of this demographic; (2) this is especially the case for more passive forms of digital religion, notably digital content consumption, compared with more active forms such as social media posting; (3) social environment does play an important role, with digital religion practices much more prevalent in the generally more religious U.S. context, compared with the generally more secular Canadian context; and (4) digital religion practices are often, but not always, tied to other in-person religious and spiritual activities among Millennials.

Conclusions and Implications

We find support especially for our third hypothesis (H₃) with these results. Consequently, we argue that we should understand the individual spiritualization and secular transition frameworks as complementary, rather than in complete opposition, regarding the prevalence of digital religion among Millennials.

中文翻译：

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美国和加拿大千禧一代的数字宗教

背景

尽管对数字宗教的性质和内容的研究越来越多，但我们对北美不同人群中数字宗教和精神实践的盛行情况仍知之甚少。数字技术在多大程度上仅对面对面的宗教和精神活动起到补充作用，或者它们是否也触及并为远离更传统的有组织宗教形式的新人群提供重要空间？

目的

目标是回答这个研究问题，并探索不同类型的数字宗教实践在美国和加拿大的年轻千禧一代中的流行情况。测试了三个截然不同的假设：数字宗教实践在千禧一代人口的大部分中普遍存在，并且是个人精神化更广泛转向的一部分（H ₁）；数字宗教实践是另一组显示千禧一代世俗转变迹象的宗教信仰指标（H ₂）；或者这两种趋势同时发生，因为一些千禧一代正在实践数字宗教，主要但不完全与面对面的宗教活动和社会化有关（H ₃）。

方法

为了检验这些假设，我们使用来自加拿大和美国的新颖、高质量的 2019 年千禧年趋势调查数据生成了一系列描述性和逻辑回归统计分析

结果

我们发现（1）本研究中衡量的数字宗教是许多千禧一代中存在的一种现象，尽管它并不存在于所有或绝大多数人口中；(2) 与社交媒体发布等更积极的形式相比，更被动的数字宗教形式尤其如此，尤其是数字内容消费；(3) 社会环境确实发挥了重要作用，与普遍更世俗的加拿大环境相比，数字宗教实践在普遍更具宗教信仰的美国环境中更为普遍；(4) 数字宗教实践通常（但不总是）与千禧一代的其他面对面的宗教和精神活动联系在一起。

结论和意义

我们发现这些结果特别支持我们的第三个假设（H ₃）。因此，我们认为，就千禧一代中数字宗教的盛行而言，我们应该将个人精神化和世俗过渡框架理解为互补，而不是完全对立。