Religious Use of Mobile Phones

Introduction

Religious individuals and communities have historically approached and appropriated new media technologies with as wide a range of responses as secular users and communities, from enthusiastic embrace to skeptical resistance. While this may give the impression that the intersection of religion and technology mirrors mainstream patterns of response and adoption, scholars have noted that religious individuals and communities have very specific and deliberate belief systems, habits, and rituals, which translate to particular ways of going about using new media technologies (Campbell, 2010). This means that the fervor and hesitance they express towards a technology is based on a set of unique factors, which influence religious users’ reasons for use, rejection, or even modification of different forms of media. The wide diversity of world religionS means that careful study is required to understand why and how specific groups approach new technologies in specific ways. The rise and proliferation of the mobile phones and apps thus creates new opportunities and challenges for religious communities, and also suggest the need for careful study in order to consider how the nature mobile technologies may create new possibilities or require unique responses from religious users.

This chapter offers an overview of the study of mobile phones and religion. This can be understood as connected to the wider study of “digital religion,” which primarily concerns itself with the intersection of religion and the Internet, and questions of how religious groups and individuals negotiate with digital technologies and cultures. Religion has been present and has played an important role in the Internet and digital culture since the 1980s, and continues to thrive online (Campbell, 2013). This engagement has been well document - for example, a Pew study in 2004 found that 64% of 128 million American Internet users had searched out religious information and engaged the Internet for different spiritual matters (Hoover, Clark & Rainie, 2004). More recently a study surveying U.S. religious congregations found that a vast majority used email websites, and 40% even had a Facebook page (Thumma, 2011). As mobile phone use has increased across the globe, scholars have also begun to study how mobile phone may be used by religious groups and speculate on the impact this technology may have on religious culture and communities.

This chapter outlines the current study of the intersection of mobile phones and religion in order to point towards important areas for future research. It is separated into three main sections. The first section offers a description of how mobile phone and digital religion have been researched, to provide a context for their intersection. The second section then highlights three key themes in the study of religion and mobile technology: religious engagement with mobile phones, religious use and design of mobile apps, and religious meaning making in mobile culture. Finally, some emerging questions and future areas for investigation in regards to mobile phones and religion are noted, with mention of key scholars in the study of mobile phones and religion.