Christians agree: Technology has made in-person conversations harder, but sharing one’s faith easier.
Sociologist Sherry Turkle blames devices for stealing away our eye contact. The moments Americans used to spend face-to-face—everywhere from riding on public transit to sitting at the dinner table—have been obstructed by smartphones, in many cases virtually eliminating the opportunity for spontaneous conversation.
Eager evangelists, the kind of people who like to talk with neighbors and fellow passengers on airplanes, may find that their chances for chit-chat increasingly get shut down by others’ chronic screen time.
This year, when Barna Group set out to capture the state of spiritual conversations in America, researchers had to zero-in on the impact of technology: Has talking about faith become harder or easier in the digital age? How do our online habits impact Christians’ opportunities to speak about their beliefs or to share the gospel?
The answers aren’t straightforward. In surveys, American Christians both recognize the new barriers yet take particular advantage of new opportunities brought by today’s technology.
“The way we communicate has evolved—and, inevitably, so has the way we communicate about faith,” states Barna’s 2018 report, Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age.
A majority of Christians have noticed the struggle to have in-person conversations, Barna found, and—like in Turkle’s research for her 2015 book Reclaiming Conversation—it’s actually the younger generations that are most acutely aware of the challenge.
About 7 in 10 millennial and Gen X Christians (69%) and 6 in 10 Boomer Christians (60%) say it’s harder to talk with people one-on-one since they’re so busy with their phones. Meanwhile, just over half ...
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