Patmos Christian Contents Group did a study from February 11 to 18 with 216 Christian participants called, "The influence of the smartphone on a Christian's spiritual life."
The results showed that though 71 percent of participants said they use the Bible app on their phone in place of their physical Bible, only 35 percent responded that they started reading the Bible more since they started using a smartphone.
When asked about the app that they used most over the past week, 91 percent chose answers such as text messengers, social media, and web searches, and only 9 percent said that they used the Bible app and other devotional apps the most.
63 percent responded "No" to the question, "Do you think the Bible app could replace the physical Bible?" and when asked about using a smartphone instead of a physical Bible during worship service, 75 percent responded negatively. But almost half of the participants said that they have used an app other than the Bible app during worship service before.
Regarding the study results, Patmos said, "This is likely related to the declining number of Christians," and added, "The core issue is that the church hasn't been able to properly deal with the world that is becoming so saturated with media."
"It's time that the church no longer tries to solve the problem by simply creating Bible apps; it must take initiative in building innovative Christian content and encourage Christians to use smartphones well," Patmos said. "With the Media Restoration Campaign during Easter week, we want to help establish a smart habit in how we handle media."
The Media Restoration Campaign is an annual campaign that Patmos has been running since 2005, and encourages participants to refrain from using the TV, computer, smartphone, and other media, and replace that time with meditation, prayer, and healthy Christian media. "Media fasting," and "selective media consumption" are two ways that the participants can go about the campaign.
"Media fasting" is completely abstaining from TV, movies, internet, smartphone, and other media that consumes our daily lives. "Selective media consumption" is setting aside a time block consume only the content that would help the Christian to meditate on Jesus Christ, his death, and resurrection, and to spend more time in the Word.
