A recent survey of American teenagers by the Barna Research Group underscores the increasing use of the Internet for religious purposes among young people. Although that represents only a modest gain from a year earlier, a more revealing insight concerned teen expectations for the future. Significantly, this notion is most common among teenagers who currently attend church regularly. The most common of those purposes is to interact with others through chat rooms or e-mail about religious ideas, beliefs or experiences. That use represents about 25 million adults who rely upon the Internet for religious expression at least monthly.
Younger adults are more likely to turn to the Internet for religion.
Religion is currently one of the least common uses of the Internet by teenagers. Whether or not the cyberchurch is a 'true' church may not be as pressing an issue as what current church leaders will do about the inevitable gravitation of tens of millions of people away from the existing church and how they can help to shape this emerging church form. The cyberchurch will receive the same treatment from today's church leaders. Barna also points out that the proportion of young people currently using the Internet for faith purposes is underestimated. A large proportion of teenagers use the Internet for conversation with others.