Internet and Religion

Abstrakt

This article includes deliberations on a few significant issues concerning the relationship between the Internet and religion. According to these deliberations, every fourth respondent among secondary school students (25.6%) searched for some forms of religious activity within the last six months before the sociological research, especially from among deeply devout persons and regular churchgoers. The overwhelming majority of the surveyed was not interested in this new activity. The young people from secondary schools used the Internet to search for religious content to a limited extent. The researched secondary school students slightly more often informed about looking for religious content on YouTube, on parish, diocese or congregation websites, as well as Internet forums or chats, while the least often on pilgrimage office sites or religious community and organization portals. About every fifth of the respondents attending secondary school attached the same importance (as multiple index indicates) to religious activity in the virtual world as in the real world (from 31.0% to 7.0%). The highest index referred to Internet retreats and sermons, prayers online, virtual parish communities as well as Holy Masses and church services on the web.