What is it about?
This study examines how mobile phones have transformed everyday religious practices among Christians in Nigeria. Based on a survey and direct observations, the research highlights how the phone acts as a "techno-spiritual gadget". It is no longer just a communication tool, but an active participant in how people pray, share testimonies, and participate in worship. The research maps out three distinct ways churchgoers react to having phones in sacred spaces: • Critics: View phones as a secular distraction that disrupts holy worship. • Advocates: Embrace phones as vital tools for digital Bibles, digital tithing, and virtual fellowships. • Dualists: Attempt to balance both sides by carefully separating holy and casual phone use.
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Why is it important?
Understanding this shift is crucial because the mobile phone has created a deep tech dependency within religious cultures. • For Academics: It provides empirical evidence of "mediatization"— the way media technologies structurally reshape social and spiritual institutions. • For Policy Makers: It illustrates how mobile connectivity serves as critical infrastructure for social cohesion, community welfare, and inclusion. • For the Public: It explains the natural tension families and congregations feel when balancing digital screen time with traditional, face-to-face community life.
Perspectives
The mobile phone has become much more than a device; it is a modern fellowship center in the palm of your hand. While it creates new avenues for global fellowship, it also forces us to rethink what it means to be truly present in a sacred space.
Allwell Nwankwo
Pan-Atlantic University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Connectivity and communion: The mobile phone and the Christian religious experience in Nigeria, New Media & Society, November 2020, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1461444820970180.
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