Events that instigate intensified actual prayer are clearly visible in the data. Likewise, whether or not we google religious terms reflects our religious preferences ( Yeung, 2019, Stephens-Davidowitz, 2015).
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Previous research has documented that Google searches disclose real offline behavior, such as consumption patterns ( Goel et al., 2010), unemployment rates ( Askitas, Zimmermann, 2009, D’Amuri, Marcucci, 2017), real-life economic behavior ( Choi and Varian, 2012), development of the flu ( Ginsberg et al., 2009), and also infections by COVID-19 prior to official statistics ( Walker et al., 2020). Google searches for prayer as a share of all Google searches provide a signal of peoples’ interest in prayer in real time. To identify the instantaneous and global impact on religiosity, the main analysis is based on one key dimension of religion prayer. This research identifies empirically the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic has increased religiosity across the globe, whether the phenomenon is global, whether it is long-lasting, and determines who use religion in times of crisis. Identifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religiosity is therefore relevant. Moreover, if the pandemic has permanently intensified the use of religion, raising global religiosity, this may have long-term effects on socio-economic factors, such as economic growth, innovation, and gender roles. On the other hand, religion may have exacerbated losses as some religious communities defied social distancing recommendations and continued to have religious mass gatherings, potentially intensifying the spread of the virus. If religion provides stress relief, believers may experience less economic anxiety and be quicker to recover. Research has documented heightened economic anxiety in the face of the pandemic, which arguably fuels the economic crisis.
This could potentially impact economic losses. 1Īt the same time, religion may have positive mental health effects, and the use of religion for coping with the anxiety caused by the pandemic may potentially reduce emotional distress. Countries have suffered losses at varying degrees, including deteriorating mental well-being.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world along multiple dimensions. The results thus reveal that religiosity has risen globally due to the pandemic with potential direct long-term consequences for various socio-economic outcomes. Instead, the rise is due to an intensified demand for religion: People pray to cope with adversity. The increase is not merely a substitute for services in the physical churches that closed down to limit the spread of the virus. Prayer searches rose more among the more religious, rose on all continents, at all levels of income, inequality, and insecurity, and for all types of religion, except Buddhism. Prayer searches remained 10% higher than previously throughout 2020, particularly so in Europe and the Americas. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that by April 1, 2020, more than half of the world population had prayed to end the coronavirus. During the early months of the pandemic, Google searches for prayer relative to all Google searches rose by 30%, reaching the highest level ever recorded. Using daily and weekly data on Google searches for 107 countries, this research demonstrates that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in a massive rise in the intensity of prayer. In times of crisis, humans have a tendency to turn to religion for comfort and explanation.
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