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Googling “Prayer” During the COVID-19 Crisis

A question from the start of the COVID-19 crisis has been the impact of the pandemic on religious beliefs and practices. A creative scholar (Jeanet Bentzen, associate professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen) has tracked daily Google searches from 95 countries and found that searches for the word prayer are at the highest level ever recorded. One clear message here is that people from across the globe are experiencing emotional distress, and many turn to religion to cope.
 
Google searches for various terms signal people’s interest in religion in real time. Apart from prayer, searches have risen for other religious terms such as God, Allah, Muhammad, Quran, Bible, and Jesus, and to a lesser extent Buddha and the Hindu gods Vishnu and Shiva. In March 2020, the share of Google searches for prayer surged, surpassing all other major events that otherwise call for prayer, such as Christmas, Easter, and Ramadan. After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, prayer search shares were over 50 percent higher than the average during February 2020. In different countries prayer searches increased after infections appeared in that country’s population.
 
One of the most common prayer-related searches in March 2020 was “coronavirus prayer.” An array of prayers ask God for protection against the coronavirus, to stay strong, and to thank nurses for their efforts. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that more than half of Americans have prayed to end the coronavirus.
 
The largest prayer increases occur in South America, Africa, and Maritime South East Asia. The rise in searches for prayer was higher for the more religious societies. Prayer searches rose for all major religious denominations, especially for Christians and Muslims. The rise was more modest for Hindus and Buddhists. Prayer search shares rose more in poorer, more insecure, and more unequal countries. People logically use religion more for coping in areas where religion already plays an important role.

Bentzen suggests that the rise in prayer may be larger than the search data indicates. Most prayers are performed without the use of the internet, recited from memory, read from physical books, or offered extemporaneously. Among those who use the internet to find prayers, the data encompasses only those who google “prayer,” while those who enter the prayer-related websites directly are not included. The elderly, who were most severely affected by the pandemic, are not the most active internet users, and thus their prayer intensity is not fully captured by the Google data. With so many on lockdown, searches overall surged so prayer searches were somewhat overshadowed. And some countries restrict internet access or people lacked access.
 
An open question is whether the COVID-19 crisis will spark lasting changes in religious beliefs and practices. Natural disasters do tend to have lasting impacts on religiosity. 

(Based on: June 15, 2020, Religion and Diplomacy article.)