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Parents and faith leaders remain young people’s most trusted sources when it comes to religious and spiritual exploration despite younger generations increasingly looking to online and media platforms for authenticity and connection, a national study has found.
The study conducted by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that while young people increasingly look to new and traditional media to support their belief systems, they also say such platforms contain inaccuracies, stereotypes or negativity and lack safe spaces for discussion.
“Gen Z and Gen Alpha are redefining what religion and spirituality look like in the digital age,” said Yalda T. Uhls, the center’s founder and CEO and senior author of the study. “They have an appetite for authentic content that reflects and amplifies their beliefs and practices.”
The UCLA center compiled its “Future of Faith” report after conducting focus groups and nationally surveying more than 2,000 adolescents and young adults, aged 14 to 24 and of varying beliefs, about their use of YouTube, TikTok and other forms of digital and traditional media to explore spiritual beliefs, belonging and identity.
The center found young people find comfort and connection in such content that complements, rather than replaces, in-person community. However, those surveyed also felt those sources ― including social media, faith-based apps, video-sharing platforms and film and TV ― often fail to accurately portray their belief systems or to offer inclusive space for expression.
“They strongly desire more authentic, nuanced storytelling and safe spaces,” the authors of the report wrote. “There is an overwhelming belief across religions that creators and TV/filmmakers need to step up to help fill that void.”
Maytha Alhassen, a research fellow for the center, said researchers assumed when the study began that young people leaned on media sources ― especially new media ― as a “third space” for religious and spiritual expression and exploration.
For instance, the center’s 2024 Teens and Screens Report found a third of survey respondents considered social media “the most authentic media source,” with nearly four in 10 adolescents naming YouTube as their top choice.
Instead, Alhassen said, the latest report found young people more typically see such spaces as supplementing their real-life experience and practice.
“They are highly aware of the impact of online algorithms and traditional media representations on their safety and how people treat them,” she said. “They expressed a strong desire for traditional media to develop stories and characters that embody more of the values and ethics of their traditions.”
Ryan Burge, professor of practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, said the findings square “pretty well with our general understanding of Gen Z, in that they don’t trust anyone.”
Burge, who is not connected to the UCLA study, cited a 2024 survey from the Association for Religion Data Archives that found just 13% of Gen Z respondents – compared to 24% of Millennials and roughly 30% of Boomers and Gen X – felt other people are generally trustworthy while nearly three in four said “you can’t be too careful” dealing with other people.
“They’re even more cynical about what they see online,” Burge said. “They are hyper aware of the lengths that influencers go to in order to make paid promotions look like authentic content.”
Young people crave in-person connection
The UCLA study nevertheless found young people are increasingly turning to online religious and spiritual content for comfort, connection, and personal exploration. In addition to social media and YouTube influencers, they seek out online communities on platforms such as Reddit and Discord, digital apps like Pray Daily and Quranly or podcasts like Judaism Unbound, Islamic Feelings and Holy Post Media.
“In the old days, most of what we learned about religious traditions was from faith leaders or our parents,” said Uhls, an adjunct professor of psychology at UCLA. “Now there’s so much more information, and they’re really looking at all of that.”
Nearly all, or 97%, of survey respondents who considered themselves religious, and 80% of those identifying as non-religious, said they had been spiritually moved, inspired or comforted by a piece of media content. For instance, the report quoted a 20-year-old Jewish woman in Ohio who said a social media influencer’s post about throwing a Hanukkah dinner party inspired her to have one of her own.
Two-thirds of religious respondents and 78% of non-religious respondents said they’d discovered new spiritual or religious ideas and practices in online content, while 68% said they’d connected with friends or peers through such platforms.
When asked who they trusted for religious and spiritual information and answers, respondents ranked faith leaders first, followed by parents and caregivers and then their religious peers. Online searches and artificial intelligence were last on the list.
“We really saw, when asked where they go – it’s people,” Uhls said. “They really are more old-fashioned than I thought. We have these assumptions about young people, but the reality is they’re much more like us than not like us.”
Burge, of Washington University, said young people are growing up with AI “all over their feeds.”
“They have every reason to be skeptical and cautious,” he said. “They would be more inclined to trust someone that they’ve known for a while. Especially when it comes to something so important as faith.”
Heidi Campbell, a professor of communication at Texas A&M University in College Station, said today’s young people crave in-person connections given that much of their lives has been spent online.
“Growing up during the pandemic in a world filled with technology, and the ramping up of AI in the last four years, has created a lot of anxiety for young people,” said Campbell, also unaffiliated with the UCLA study.
The confinement of the epidemic was especially disruptive for younger people whose normal socialization patterns would have been shaped by youth groups or vacation bible school, she said.
“There’s this sense of loneliness that’s bubbled up since the pandemic that Gen Z identifies with very strongly,” Campbell said.
The power and pitfalls of social media
The study found religious and spiritual representations on online and social media platforms, as well as in TV and film, significantly impact young people’s sense of safety, belonging and how they’re treated by others.
Just 40% of respondents felt online content accurately represented their beliefs or worldview, consistently identifying social media, rather than TV or movies, as the platform most likely to provide authentic or positive representations of their religion and spirituality.
“In, like, a movie or something, it’ll show a Muslim girl and it’ll be like, ‘This is how restricted she is,’” one survey respondent, a 14-year-old Muslim girl in New York, was quoted as saying. “And then on social media you actually see, like, the actual way you live. It’s more accurate.”
Still, fewer than a third of religious respondents said they had strong online belief-based communities, while 60% of all respondents reported seeing online content, including derogatory remarks on social media posts, that made them feel less safe expressing their own beliefs.
More than half of respondents said they wished content creators, influencers and TV/filmmakers would do a better job of building online communities for their spiritual or religious groups and moving beyond simplified or stereotypical portrayals of their beliefs, values or communities.
“It doesn’t have to be the main identity for a character, just the way we are in the real world,” Uhls said. “Often in traditional media, if a character is religious it becomes a huge part of their character and risks coming across as a stereotype.”
The study illustrated that young people are eager to seek meaning in their lives, she said.
“This is that age when they start looking at what adults have been telling them, that there’s good and bad people,” Uhls said. “They start seeing the hypocrisy in so much of what adults say. They’re making their own choices and questioning things.”