Is the internet making us lose our religion?

A new study claims that the internet is one of the main forces behind more and more Americans losing interest in religion.

Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, published his paper "Religious Affiliation, Education and Internet Use" in the MIT Technology Review on Friday.

He uses data from the University of Chicago's General Social Survey to show that those with no religious preference numbered 10 per cent of the US population in 1990, but that jumped to 18 per cent in 2010. This amounts to approximately 25 million people.

Mr Downey also notes that the Protestant percentage of the US has dropped from 62 per cent in 1990 to 51 per cent in 2010. In 2010, over half (53 per cent) of the population spent at least two hours per week on line, and 25 per cent were online for more than seven hours.

At the same time, he points to how internet use has gone up from essentially zero per cent in 1990 to 80 per cent in 2010. He also notes that the percentage of university graduates in the US has increased in that same time from 17 per cent to 27 per cent. Keep reading