![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
The rapid adoption of social networking sites (SNS) has prompted educators, parents, and researchers to consider the role SNS play in social life. Few scholars, however, have examined the effects of SNS on the religious beliefs of emerging adults. Drawing from Peter Berger’s concept of “plausibility structures” and his theory of pluralism, I explore whether young adults who use SNS are more likely to condone religious pluralism and syncretism. Using panel data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I find that emerging adults who use SNS are more likely to think it is acceptable to pick and choose their religious beliefs, and practice multiple religions independent of what their religious tradition teaches, but they are not more likely to believe all religions are true. These findings suggest that exposure to broader networks through social media leads to increased acceptance of syncretistic beliefs and practices.
References
|
Bargh, John A., McKenna, Katelyn Y. A. 2004. “The Internet and Social Life.” Annual Review of Psychology 55(1):573–90. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Bengtson, Vern L., Putney, Norella M., Harris, Susan. 2013. Families and Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down across Generations. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Berger, Peter L. 1969. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Berger, Peter L. 1980. Heretical Imperative. London, England: HarperCollins Distribution Services. Google Scholar | |
|
Berger, Peter L. 2014. The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age. Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Berger, Peter L., Berger, Brigitte, Kellner, Hansfried. 1974. The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. New York: Vintage Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Berger, Peter L., Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor. Google Scholar | |
|
Bobkowski, Piotr S. 2008. “Self-disclosure of Religious Identity on Facebook.” Gnovis. Retrieved October 15, 2014 (http://gnovisjournal.org/2008/12/16/self-disclosure-religious-identity-facebook/). Google Scholar | |
|
Bobkowski, Piotr S., Pearce, Lisa D. 2011. “Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self-disclosure in Social Media.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(4):744–62. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
boyd, danah m., Ellison, Nicole B. 2007. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1):210–30. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Brenner, Joanna, Smith, Aaron. 2013. 72% of Online Adults Are Social Networking Site Users. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved October 15, 2014 (http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-are-social-networking-site-users/). Google Scholar | |
|
Campbell, Heidi . 2005. “Making Space for Religion in Internet Studies.” The Information Society 21(4):309–15. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Campbell, Heidi . 2010. When Religion Meets New Media. London, England: Routledge. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Dill, Jeffrey S. 2012. Culture of American Families: Interview Report. Charlottesville, VA: Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Google Scholar | |
|
DiMaggio, Paul, Hargittai, Eszter, Neuman, W. Russell, Robinson, John P. 2001. “Social Implications of the Internet.” Annual Review of Sociology 27(1):307–36. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Downey, Allen B. 2014. “Religious Affiliation, Education and Internet Use.” arXiv:1403.5534 [stat]. Retrieved July 7, 2014 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.5534). Google Scholar | |
|
Dreyfus, Hubert L. 2008. On the Internet. 2nd ed. London, England: Routledge. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus 129(1):1–29. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Hampton, Keith, Goulet, Lauren Sessions, Rainie, Lee, Purcell, Kristen. 2011. Social Networking Sites and Our Lives. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved October 15, 2014 (http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/06/16/social-networking-sites-and-our-lives/). Google Scholar | |
|
Jansen, Bernard J., Tapia, Andrea, Spink, Amanda. 2010. “Searching for Salvation: An Analysis of US Religious Searching on the World Wide Web.” Religion 40(1):39–52. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Kross, Ethan, Verduyn, Philippe, Demiralp, Emre, Park, Jiyoung, Lee, David Seungjae, Lin, Natalie, Shablack, Holly, Jonides, John, Ybarra, Oscar. 2013. “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-being in Young Adults.” PLoS ONE 8(8):e69841. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Mercadante, Linda A. 2014. Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but Not Religious. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Moore, Wilbert Ellis . 1972. Technology and Social Change. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Nie, Norman H., Erbring, Lutz. 2002. “Internet and Society: A Preliminary Report.” IT & Society 1(1):275–83. Google Scholar | |
|
Pearce, Lisa, Denton, Melinda Lundquist. 2011. A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America’s Adolescents. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Prensky, Marc . 2001. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon 9(5). Retrieved April 15, 2016 (http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf). Google Scholar | |
|
Putnam, Robert D. 1995. “Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America.” Political Science & Politics 28(4):664–83. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Putnam, Robert D., Campbell, David E. 2012. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster. Google Scholar | |
|
Rahner, Karl . 1982. Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity. New York: The Crossroad Publishing. Google Scholar | |
|
Roberts, James A., Yaya, Luc Honore Petnji, Manolis, Chris. 2014. “The Invisible Addiction: Cell-phone Activities and Addiction among Male and Female College Students.” Journal of Behavioral Addictions 3:254–65. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Roof, Wade Clark . 1993. A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation. 1st ed. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins. Google Scholar | |
|
Roof, Wade Clark . 2001. Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion. Reprint ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Rosenfeld, Michael J., Thomas, Reuben J. 2012. “Searching for a Mate: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary.” American Sociological Review 77(4):523–47. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Schultze, Quentin J. 2004. Habits of the High-tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Google Scholar | |
|
Smith, Christian, Denton, Melina Lundquist. 2005. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Reprint ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Smith, Christian, Snell, Patricia. 2009. Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Song, Felicia Wu . 2009. Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together. New York: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. Google Scholar | |
|
Stark, Rodney, Finke, Roger. 2000. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Steensland, Brian, Park, Jerry Z., Regnerus, Mark D., Robinson, Lynn D., Wilcox, W. Bradford, Woodberry, Robert D. 2000. “The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art.” Social Forces 79(1):291–318. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Sunstein, Cass R. 2009. Republic.com 2.0. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Trinitapoli, Jenny . 2007. “‘I KNOW THIS ISN’T PC, BUT . . .’: Religious Exclusivism among U.S. Adolescents.” Sociological Quarterly 48(3):451–83. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Turkle, Sherry . 1997. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Reprint ed. New York: Simon & Schuster. Google Scholar | |
|
Turkle, Sherry . 2011a. Alone Together Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Turkle, Sherry . 2011b. “The Tethered Self: Technology Reinvents Intimacy and Solitude.” Continuing Higher Education Review 75:28–31. Google Scholar | |
|
Twenge, Jean M., Exline, Julie J., Grubbs, Joshua B., Sastry, Ramya, Campbell, W. Keith. 2015. “Generational and Time Period Differences in American Adolescents’ Religious Orientation, 1966–2014.” PLoS ONE 10(5):e0121454. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Valenzuela, Sebastián, Halpern, Daniel, Katz, James E. 2014. “Social Network Sites, Marriage Well-being and Divorce: Survey and State-level Evidence from the United States.” Computers in Human Behavior 36:94–101. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Wang, Ligang, Luo, Jing, Luo, Jing, Gao, Wenbin, Kong, Jie. 2012. “The Effect of Internet Use on Adolescents’ Lifestyles: A National Survey.” Computers in Human Behavior 28(6):2007–13. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Warschauer, Mark . 2003. Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Wellman, Barry . 2001. “Computer Networks as Social Networks.” Science 293(5537):2031–34. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Wuthnow, Robert . 1998. After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. New ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Wuthnow, Robert . 2007. America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Wuthnow, Robert . 2009. American Mythos: Why Our Best Efforts to Be a Better Nation Fall Short. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Wuthnow, Robert . 2010. After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref |
