Washington D.C., May 18, 2004 / 22:00 pm
Of the almost 130 million Americans who are Internet users, 64 per cent of them, or almost 82 million, use the Internet for religious, faith or spiritual reasons.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently released the results of their research, noting that those who use the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes tend to be devout women, white, middle-aged, college-educated, and middle-to-upper class.
The online faithful are also more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet population. On a typical day, 63 per cent of them are online. About 56 per cent of them have been online for six years or longer. And 60 per cent have broadband connections either at home or at work.
The research also discovered that the online faithful use the Internet for personal spiritual matters more than for traditional religious functions, but their faith activity online seems to increase their commitments to their congregations.
To read the report, go to: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports