also began spending 400 million hours per day on the internet. Coincidence? I don't

know.......

Hey everyone, Laci Green here for DNews. As religiosity in America continues to fall at

a pretty dramatic rate, scientists have been asking: huh? WHYYYY??? In a new study published

by MIT's Technology Review, the findings are a little...SHOCKING. Brace yourself. They've

found that the internet itself may be responsible for the decline of faith. Using the University

of Chicago's General Social Survey, computer scientist Allen Downey tracked the religious

affiliation of thousands of Americans against other variables like religious upbringing,

income, education, and...how much time you spend online. Here's what he found.

The strongest predictor of religious affiliation was being raised in that religion. So, if

you grew up Catholic or whatever, this is the best predictor of being Catholic as an

adult. Downey's statistics suggest that similarly, more people are being raised without a strong

religious affiliation. This is responsible for about 25% of the drop in religiosity.

Another 5% of the drop is attributed to the rise in college education, which has been

happening over the same period. Those with a higher education are less likely to call

themselves religious. And then.... the controversial portion...he found the second big drop of

25% is directly correlated with time spent online, a category of person which was basically

non-existent in the 80s. Which is a really interesting thing to think about. Could the

internet really be a catalyst for people losing their faith? Apparently, yeah! But it should

be noted that this is a CORRELATION, not a causation - a scientific mantra that must

be repeated ad nauseum. Basically: we can't conclude that the internet CAUSES people to

lose their faith just yet, but we can definitely observe a strong pattern that's occurring

here.

What might the internet have to do with it? One theory is that the internet makes it easy

for people with very different beliefs to connect personally, to communicate and challenge

the strength of their beliefs. Being more exposed to other ideologies also breaks people

out of the insulated bubble of their own physical communities, where that wasn't possible before

the web. The internet also provides a vast body of information about all different types

of belief systems -- which creates more of a demand to question your own. Of those belief

systems people are getting more information about is a non-religious worldview, which

is becoming a more well-known and accessible alternative to more traditional belief systems.

It's all very interesting to me -- and even moreso that there's still about 50% of the

religiosity drop that is unaccounted for. Down below (On our facebook page), what do

you think? Will the internet make atheists of us all? Or could the internet be used to

promote religious faith as well? Thanks for joining me folks, I'll see you next time with

more science updates!