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Digital spirituality grows, but young people still rely on family and faith leaders

Phys · · 838 words · By Elizabeth Kivowitz
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What to know about Digital spirituality grows, but young people still rely on family and faith leaders

The article reports on a study by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA regarding how Gen Z and Gen Alpha engage with religion and spirituality through digital media. The findings indicate that while online content provides comfort and exploration, young people still prioritize in-person faith leaders and traditional spaces for guidance.

Propaganda risk 10%
Claims checked 13
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center80%
Right20%

5 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Digital spirituality grows, but young people still rely on family and faith leaders Robert Egan Senior Editor Social media, music, religion-focused apps and other online spiritual content have become popular ways for adolescents to find comfort and…

Why it matters

However, they still prioritize in-person spaces such as churches, mosques or synagogues in their faith practice and turn to family and faith leaders for spiritual and religious guidance.

Common ground

The findings come from the first Future of Faith study from CSS, a nonprofit organization founded by Yalda T.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article reports on a study by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA regarding how Gen Z and Gen Alpha engage with religion and spirituality through digital media. The findings indicate that while online content provides comfort and exploration, young people still prioritize in-person faith leaders and traditional spaces for guidance.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-08-digital-spirituality-young-people-family.html

analyticsAnalysis

10%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 95%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 13 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 5
schedule Pending 3
info Single Source 2
verified Verified 1
verified Verified By Reference 1
help Insufficient Evidence 1
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Claim 1: “fewer than one-third of religious respondents said they had a strong faith- or belief-based online community.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
info
Claim 2: “Seventy percent of religious respondents said media portrayals of their religion or spirituality influence how others treat them.”
SINGLE SOURCE
While one piece of evidence for claim 5 mentions that 'Some 70% of respondents said general media portrayals... influence how others treat them', there is no dedicated evidence provided for claim 8 specifically, and it is only mentioned as a secondary point in a result for another claim.
schedule
Claim 3: “More than half of respondents from most religious groups said religious content they encountered about beliefs or worldviews had contributed to conflict or tension with a family member, friend or peer.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
check_circle
Claim 4: “More than 97% of religious respondents and 80% of nonreligious respondents said they had been spiritually moved, inspired or comforted by a piece of online content.”
CORROBORATED
Two independent sources (UCLA and Crosswalk.com) report the exact statistics: 97% of religious and 80% of nonreligious respondents were spiritually moved by online content.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Over may refer to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Over and Over may refer to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_and_Over
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — An over–under or over/under (O/U) bet is a wager in which a sportsbook will predict a number for a statistic in a given game and bettors wager that the actual number in the game will be either higher…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over–under
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 5: “67% of religious respondents and 78% of nonreligious respondents said it has helped them discover new spiritual or religious ideas and practices.”
VERIFIED
The UCLA source directly confirms the statistics: 67% of religious and 78% of nonreligious respondents said online content helped them discover new spiritual or religious ideas.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Growth of religion involves the spread of individual religions and the increase in the numbers of religious adherents around the world. In sociology, desecularization is the proliferation or growth of…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_religion
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, ethics, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, or organizations, that generall…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 6: “a new report from the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA (CSS)”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent web sources confirm the Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS) at UCLA released a study/report on digital spirituality and young people.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Ellen Lee Goldsmith-Vein (née Goldsmith; born November 2, 1963) is an American television and film producer. She is the founder and CEO of the Gotham Group, a management company founded in 1993. Golds…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Goldsmith-Vein
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Joy Gorman Wettels (born October 26, 1973) is an American television producer and founder of Joy Coalition. She is executive producer of Unprisoned, 13 Reasons Why and Home Before Dark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Gorman_Wettels
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Yalda T. Uhls is an American developmental psychologist, researcher, author, and the founder of the UCLA-based Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Her work focuses on the effects of media on adolescen…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalda_T._Uhls
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 7: “Nearly 7 in 10 religious respondents (68%) reported connecting with friends or peers online through spiritual or religious content.”
CORROBORATED
Three independent web sources confirm that 68% (nearly 7 in 10) of religious respondents reported connecting with peers online through spiritual or religious content.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Iranian-Americans, also known as Persian Americans, are United States citizens or inhabitants who have Iranian ancestry or citizenship. According to Iran's National Organization for Civil Registration…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Americans
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Christianity is the largest religion in the United Kingdom, though it no longer represents a majority of the population. The United Kingdom was historically a Christian-majority country, but Christian…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_Kingdom
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sharia (; Arabic: ‏شَرِيعَة‎, romanized: šarīʿa, lit. 'path [to water]', IPA: [ʃaˈriːʕa]), also transliterated as Sharī'ah, Shari'a, Shariah, or erroneously referred to as Sharia Law is a body of reli…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 8: “CSS surveyed more than 2,000 young people ages 16 to 24 and conducted focus groups with nearly 100 adolescents and young adults ages 14 to 24”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of irrelevant results (Roblox videos, Harrods, and CSS coding definitions). No evidence was found to confirm the specific sample size of 2,000 survey participants or 100 focus group participants.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for specifying the presentation and styling of a document written in a markup language, such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A CSS hack is a coding technique used to hide or show CSS markup depending on the browser, version number, or capabilities. Browsers have different interpretations of CSS behavior and different levels…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_hack
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Web colors, also known as hex codes and color codes, are colors used in displaying web pages on the World Wide Web; they can be described by way of three methods: a color may be specified as an RGB …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors
+ 3 more evidence sources
schedule
Claim 9: “more than 60% of all respondents reported that something they had seen in the media made them feel less safe expressing their religious beliefs.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
check_circle
Claim 10: “Sara Schnitker, professor of psychology and associate vice provost of interdisciplinary initiatives at Baylor University, and Rebekah Richert, professor of psychology at UC Riverside, served as advisers on the study.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm Sara Schnitker (Baylor University) and Rebekah Richert (UC Riverside) served as advisers/consultants on the study.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Sara Schnitker, professor of psychology and associate vice provost of interdisciplinary initiatives at Baylor University, and Rebekah Richert, professor of psychology at UC Riverside, served as advise…
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-digital-spirituality-young-peo…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — To our brilliant consultants, Sarah Schnitker and Rebekah Richert, whose expertise and careful attention sharpened our thinking at every stage of this study. To our project advisors, whose guidance an…
https://www.scholarsandstorytellers.com/future-of-faith
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Sarah Schnitker, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, explains how a culture of instant gratification — fueled by our use of smart phones and on-demand everything — has made …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4LjW8ozjm0
info
Claim 11: “more than 60% of religious young people said their practice remains rooted in traditional spaces or that they combine traditional practice with media use.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of medical studies regarding letrozole therapy for breast cancer, which are completely irrelevant to the claim about religious young people.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — We aimed to retrospectively evaluate a series of elderly women with ER-positive breast cancer treated with primary letrozole therapy as sole therapy with a minimum of 5 years follow up. To identify po…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25010604/
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Aromatase inhibitors may be more beneficial than Tamoxifen when used as primary endocrine therapy in elderly patients. We therefore aimed to retrospectively evaluate a series of elderly women with ER-…
https://www.ejso.com/article/S0748-7983(12)00138-2/fulltext
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Letrozole is the most potent nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitor with respect to tissue and plasma estrogen suppression in postmenopausal women [8–10]. The current therapeutic dose of letrozole is 2.5 mg…
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4740217/
help
Claim 12: “Less than half of respondents (about 40%) in nearly every religious and nonreligious group felt that representations of their faith or beliefs were accurate.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was provided in the search results to support or contradict the claim regarding the 40% accuracy perception of faith representations.
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Claim 13: “The findings come from the first Future of Faith study from CSS, a nonprofit organization founded by Yalda T. Uhls, an adjunct professor in UCLA's department of psychology.”
CORROBORATED
Two independent web sources explicitly state the 'Future of Faith' study was conducted by CSS, a nonprofit founded by Yalda T. Uhls, an adjunct professor in UCLA's department of psychology.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Yalda T. Uhls is an American developmental psychologist, researcher, author, and the founder of the UCLA-based Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Her work focuses on the effects of media on adolescen…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalda_T._Uhls
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The findings come from the first Future of Faith study from CSS, a nonprofit organization founded by Yalda T. Uhls, an adjunct professor in UCLA's department of psychology.
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-digital-spirituality-young-peo…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The findings come from the first Future of Faith study from CSS, a nonprofit organization founded by Yalda T. Uhls, who is an adjunct professor in UCLA’s department of psychology.
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/gen-alpha-z-trust-parents…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.