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Christians in general are increasingly using digital media to access Scripture, a study published in Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture reveals.
According to the study, many Christians today don’t bring a print Bible to work or school, but when they read in those settings, 42.7 percent use their smartphone, while 20.7 percent use their computer.
Using survey data, assessments of comprehension, and daily reading progress, the study published 3rd September 2019 examined how engagement with the Bible varies between print and screens.
Results, according to the report, indicated that Christians use a combination of print and digital forms of Scripture based on the kind of engagement they want to carry out (devotional reading, in-depth study, prayer, etc.).
“Readers using mobile devices are more likely to engage scripture daily than those using printed Bibles, and these effects are more pronounced in male readers than female readers,” the study claimed.
On smartphones, respondents said they use apps for devotionals (45.3%) or Bible searches (38.7%). Smartphones were also the highest medium for audio.
For longer reading, majority of participants (66 percent) said they prefer a print Bible. The study also found that while in church, many correspondents said they felt more comfortable opening their print Bibles rather than an app.
When reading to children, correspondents preferred reading the print Bible (42.7%) instead of engaging the Bible using a smartphone (12.7%), likely “because they wanted to foster a healthy respect for the Bible,” Mr John Dyer, author of the report and a Christian coder conducting his PhD research on the Bible software industry told Christianity Today.
“Print and digital Bibles are usually framed in opposition to one another… but the data suggests the relationship is much more complex,” Dyer said. “Bible reading today is more of a multimedia experience, with readers using a combination of print, screen, and audio depending on form of Bible engagement they are doing.”
The data suggested readers had lower comprehension when reading the Bible on screens compared to print. Dyer asked participants to read the book of Jude in print or digitally and answer some questions.
“Digital users were nearly twice as likely to report feeling ‘confused’ with many indicating that they would like to ‘read it again’ or ‘study Jude more,’” he reported.
That said, the study found that Men prefer reading things digitally more than women do, while women generally have higher reading comprehension.
