Study finds Christian women use social media differently than other women—and feel differently afterwards.
In the next 30 minutes, a quarter of practicing Christian women who use social media will check their accounts (26%). Within the next two hours, another quarter will check in (29%).
That’s according to an August survey by Barna Group and Proverbs 31 of 455 American women. Barna defines practicing Christian women as those who self-identify as Christian, attend church at least once a month, and say their faith is very important in their lives.
Most of those women—like a quarter of the world’s population—are on Facebook. The company has 1.7 billion active monthly users, including four out of five practicing Christian women in America.
In fact, far more women—Christian or not—have Facebook accounts than any other type of social media. Less than half the percentage of Facebook users are on Pinterest (37%), Twitter (35%), or Google Plus (26%). Fewer still have accounts with Instagram (20%), Tumblr (10%), or Snapchat (9%).
Like all American women, Christian women use the sites quite a bit. In a typical week, half of those who use social media check it first thing in the morning (49% of practicing Christian women vs. 50% of all women), and another half check right before bed (47% vs. 46%).
A quarter of Christian women get immediate alerts on their phones when someone interacts with them on social media (26% vs. 25%). And they are significantly more likely (16%) than the average American woman (9%) to feel anxious if they haven’t checked social media in a while.
Once they’re logged in, Christian women tend to linger. About a third typically spend half an hour or more on each visit to Facebook (35%); another quarter are there from 10 to 19 minutes (27%). Both of those numbers are close to …
