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posted by n1 on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the internet-is-the-devil dept.

In 1990, about 8 percent of the US population had no religious preference but by 2010, this percentage had more than doubled to 18 percent. That's a difference of about 25 million people, all of whom have somehow lost their religion. Now MIT Technology Review reports that Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, has analyzed the data in detail and says that the dramatic drop in religious affiliation is the result of several factors but about 25 percent of the drop is due to the rise of the Internet. Downey concludes that the increase in Internet use in the last two decades has caused a significant drop in religious affiliation: for moderate use (2 or more hours per week) the odds ratio is 0.82. For heavier use (7 or more hours per week) the odds ratio is 0.58.

What Downey has found is a correlation and any statistician will tell you that correlations do not imply causation. But that does not mean that it is impossible to draw conclusions from correlations, only that they must be properly guarded. "Correlation does provide evidence in favor of causation, especially when we can eliminate alternative explanations or have reason to believe that they are less likely," says Downey. It's straightforward to imagine how spending time on the Internet can lead to religious disaffiliation. "For people living in homogeneous communities, the Internet provides opportunities to find information about people of other religions (and none), and to interact with them personally," says Downey. "Conversely, it is harder (but not impossible) to imagine plausible reasons why disaffiliation might cause increased Internet use."

There is another possibility: that a third unidentified factor causes both increased Internet use and religious disaffiliation. But Downey discounts this possibility. "We have controlled for most of the obvious candidates, including income, education, socioeconomic status, and rural/urban environments. (PDF)" If this third factor exists, it must have specific characteristics. It would have to be something new that was increasing in prevalence during the 1990s and 2000s, just like the Internet. "It is hard to imagine what that factor might be."

 
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by migz on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:52PM

    by migz (1807) on Thursday April 10 2014, @03:52PM (#29500)

    Apparently it's difficult to imagine why holding a non-religious affiliation leads to higher internet use.

    Perhaps holders of a minority religious viewpoint spend the time that others would in their religious practices on interacting in a similar manner online?

    Tada! Where's my nobel prize?

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:03PM (#29508)

    Or alternatively: If you hold a minority viewpoint, you are more likely to need the internet to hold contact with others of the same opinion. If you are religious and live in a religious environment and want to talk with someone about your believes, you find many people to talk to, including people specialized on that (priests). There's no equivalent to the local priest for atheist, and with fewer people being atheist (and possibly quite a few of them not being open about it due to social pressure from the religious environment), you have an increased need to communicate online (possibly anonymously or under pseudonym) if you want to talk with someone about it.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by fishybell on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:09PM

    by fishybell (3156) on Thursday April 10 2014, @04:09PM (#29515)

    I know around here, in Provo, UT, there is a large amount of BYU students who have become disaffiliated from the LDS church, but can't openly talk about it among their peers* because of fear of getting expelled**. Online, pseudonymous, forums are often times their only outlet.

    *Someone will taddle on you. The "honor system" they have is anything but "on your honor."

    **You can be accepted to the school if you aren't Mormon, but you are expelled if you ever were and then leave.

    • (Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:07PM

      by Buck Feta (958) on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:07PM (#29572) Journal

      I think this is spot on. The internet isn't changing people's minds about anything, but it is making it far easier for people to express and hear minority or unpopular viewpoints. Witness the rapid increase in societal acceptance of non or minority religions, minority sexualities, alternative political viewpoints, and recreational drug use, all co-incident with the adoption of the internet.

      --
      - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Thursday April 10 2014, @10:39PM

      by Angry Jesus (182) on Thursday April 10 2014, @10:39PM (#29745)

      > You can be accepted to the school if you aren't Mormon,
      > but you are expelled if you ever were and then leave.

      Sounds like they are using BYU as a method of recruitment. Apostates aren't likely to come back, but everyone else is a candidate for conversion.

      • (Score: 2) by fishybell on Thursday April 17 2014, @06:22PM

        by fishybell (3156) on Thursday April 17 2014, @06:22PM (#32776)

        I think it's threefold: recruitment potential, suppression of dissident thoughts, and discouraging people from leaving the church. The last two fit in very well with the groupthink at BYU and in the church as a whole. The last is good from a PR perspective as well: the church reports 15 million members, but there is and activity rate of (depending on how you look at the data, and where you get the data) 12 to 30%. Probably more self-identify as Mormon, but I know a lot of people that don't, but are still actively counted by the church, myself included.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by strength_of_10_men on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:00PM

    by strength_of_10_men (909) on Thursday April 10 2014, @05:00PM (#29566)
    it's pretty easy to explain:

    anyone who spends any extended amount of time on the internet will stumble across 4chan.
    some of the stuff on there will cause you to question the existence of a god.