The ever-evolving coronavirus pandemic has upended our world in ways no one could have ever expected. Journalists still don’t know where this story is going.
But one thing is clear. While death tolls climb and fall depending on which countries are effectively flattening the curve, the vast majority of those of us who are healthy and staying at home still have to deal with loneliness.
How does faith play a part in mitigating isolation? A survey released four weeks ago by Springtide Research Institute, which studies trends of those ages 13 to 25. What did they find? The survey revealed the following regarding young people, faith and the novel coronavirus. The following summary is long, but essential, especially for religion-beat professionals:
… For many young adults, shelter in place and social distancing provokes fear and uncertainty, leading to increased levels of isolation, loneliness, and anxiety. The survey found that the single most important way to mitigate loneliness is for trusted adults to reach out and connect with young adults.
* The survey consisted of a national panel of 508 respondents ages 18–25, with a margin of error of +/- 4% at a 95% confidence level, administered between March 24 and March 31, 2020.
* One in three respondents are sheltering in place alone.
* 63% of all respondents say that they do not feel as alone or isolated when people reach out to them.
* Among young adults who are sheltering in place with others, half still say that they feel alone, and nearly eight out of ten report feeling less lonely when a trusted adult from outside their household checks in on them.
* About 58% say they feel scared and uncertain, and 66% of those who feel this way say they don’t have anyone to talk to about their emotions. Thus, they feel isolated because no one is reaching out to them.
* Respondents are not experiencing a decrease in their faith; in fact, 35% increased their faith and 47% stayed the same.
* Nearly 46% have started new religious practices, and 43% have participated in at least one religious service online.
* Yet 50% of those who have attended an online service report that they don’t have anyone to talk to about how they are feeling, and 44% report feeling isolated because no one has reached out to them.
Journalists love surveys and polls. So why didn’t this one get any attention?
I suspect it’s because of the obvious religion content.
By comparison, a recent survey involving COVID-19 and mental health — one that didn’t ask any questions or track trends regarding religion, faith or spirituality — did get the attention of The Washington Post. Another poll involving the virus and the use of anti-depressants ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Again, this survey had zero questions regarding religion — although religion angles could have easily been teased out of these studies. It shouldn’t be lost on news editors and reporters that this pandemic and stay at home orders have taken place at a time of year where billions around the world celebrated Passover and Holy Week-Easter. Muslims are currently marking Ramadan, which runs until May 23 this year.
This pandemic takes place just as the trend has been in an increase of “nones” — Americans with no religious affiliation — in part linked to trends in the giant millennial generation.
This survey seems to counter the secular narrative. If this pandemic has thought us anything it’s that the world isn’t the same place it was just two months ago. It was in October 2019 that Pew Research found that Christianity (both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) was in decline across the United States. In December 2019, FiveThirtyEight, a website that specializes in data journalism, almost gleefully headlined a story this way: “Millennials are leaving religion and not coming back.”
This is what Pew reported, a story widely reported in the mainstream press:
The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.
We know that trauma on a massive scale tends to increase religiosity. The coronavirus crisis has led to a loss of societal rituals, secular ones like a ballgame, but also religious ones like Sunday services, baptisms and even public funerals.
How prayer plays into all this matters to society and is therefore a story. Opinion polling on this issue — religion during a pandemic — will increase with every passing week we are all stuck inside. The video above (and this recent Catholic News Service story) examines why words like “prayer” have increased in Google searches over the past month.
Once again, what the mainstream press largely missed was widely reported by the religious press, particularly Catholic media organizations. One of the best stories on the topic was written by Christopher White at Crux (full disclosure: White is on the advisory committee of the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute at The King’s College where I teach) under the headline, “Study finds young strong in faith amid virus, but increasingly lonely.” Here is the key section from that story:
Among those surveyed, 35 percent of respondents said that they are actually experiencing an increase of faith, and 46 percent attested to having developed new religious practices.
Yet while Church leaders may be relieved by that data, 50 percent of those who’ve attended an online service also reported they don’t have anyone to talk to about how they are feeling, and 44 percent report feeling isolated because no one has reached out to them.
Further, clergy or faith leaders account for less than one percent of those adults who’ve reached out to young people, who represent what the study labels one of the “most lonely and isolated generations that have ever existed.”
In addition, the survey found a severe lack of trust in institutions. On a scale from 1 to 10, over 60 percent of young people rank their trust level at 5 or lower for a range on institutions, including organized religion, with religious practice not offering a “protective effect” against the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”
The piece also includes lots of basic reporting to give this data context. It includes quotes from those in the Catholic community who deal with young people.
Here is some important material from two key interviews:
In response, Paul Jarzembowski, who oversees Youth and Young Adult Ministries for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), told Crux the findings are a call for a greater pastoral response to isolation and loneliness among youth and young adults that was already an issue before the pandemic, which has only exacerbated the concerns.
“We need to reach out to them and support them during this time, and even beyond this time of social distancing, as its impact will certainly be felt for years to come,” he said. “This global health crisis will likely be the defining moment in the life of youth and young adults today. We cannot underestimate it as we consider how we best reach out and minister with young people.”
Sister Nathalie Becquart, a member of the Congregation of Xavieres, who was the first woman to serve as the Director of the National Service for Youth Evangelization and Vocations in France, told Crux that the study’s data is consistent with similar studies released in recent years.
Becquart observed that while young people strongly value connections and friendship with their peers, “they also need adults who are figures of reference for them.”
She said this is not only consistent with the latest study — which found that “when a trusted adult outside their house connected with young people, nearly eight out of ten report feeling less lonely” — but also resonates with the conclusions from the Vatican’s 2018 Synod of Bishops on Young People, of which Becquart was an auditor.
Stories about social distancing, mental health and faith were also done by other Catholic news outlets such as The Catholic Weekly, Aleteia and Angelus News. Religion News Service also reported on the study. The sole exception in the mainstream press was the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The reason? It’s twofold: The group that conducted the study is located in Winona, Minn., a two-hour drive south of Minneapolis-St. Paul, and the paper has a religion reporter.
Under the headline, “Religion doesn't buffer young adults from loneliness,” this is how the paper opened its story:
A new survey of teens and young adults found that religious institutions don’t make a difference when it comes to combating a serious problem afflicting their generation — namely isolation and loneliness.
One in three report they feel completely alone much of the time, according to a recent survey by the Springtide Research Institute. Nearly 40% say they have no one to talk to and feel left out.
Attending religious services offered no protective barriers, the study found. When young adults living alone during the coronavirus were asked which trusted adults were checking in on them, only 1% said it was someone from their religious home.
The story, written by the paper’s religion and values reporter Jean Hopfensperger, also highlighted the following:
The major takeaway for religious groups, as well as schools, nonprofits and other groups that work with young people is that it’s not so much the program that makes a young person feel a sense of belonging, but rather whether they feel noticed and known.
“Participation is not belonging,” the report notes.
The survey found that the more trusted adults that young people have in their lives the less isolated they feel. If faith groups want to change their lives, the adults need to know their names and get to know them so that “sense of belonging” grows.
Again, can loneliness be an issue during a pandemic?
It certainly can be when people have been told to stay home to avoid spreading the deadly virus. Is that a key element of this global news story? It certainly is.
Too bad that so many secular reporters and editors didn’t think a study involving the virus and religion was worth coverage.