Tracking Spirituality through Digital Applications

Many scholars have looked into the usage of self-monitoring applications and its relation to health and well being. However, the field of spirituality was yet almost untouched. This is remarkable, as spirituality has a large part in today’s society. Therefore, this research aims to look into the usage and effects of spiritual self-monitoring applications. While there is limited research on the effect of the usage of self-monitoring applications on a user’s health, it is deemed significant to look into the effects of Christian applications on perceived spiritual growth and the practice of spiritual disciplines. Technologies of the self, a concept coined by Michel Foucault, and the quantification of the self theory is employed as a theoretical framework for this research. This study has looked at to what extent the frequency of Christian application usage influences the practice of spiritual disciplines, with perceived spiritual growth as a mediator. Through a quantitative survey with 501 respondents, Christian application users were asked to rate their digital application usage, their practice of spiritual disciplines, the perceived value of Christian applications and the perceived spiritual growth through Christian applications. The results suggest that the usage of worship and Bible reading applications has a significant effect on perceived spiritual growth through these applications. Furthermore, applications of all spiritual disciplines except for attending church have a significant effect on the practice of spiritual disciplines. However, the results also suggested that the practice of spiritual disciplines could not be explained by perceived spiritual growth. Hence, spiritual growth did not mediate the relationship between the frequency Christian applications were used and the practice of spiritual disciplines. Application builders and church or denominational leaders could use this research in their advantage, incorporating behaviour change theories in Christian applications in order to motivate more users to transform their behaviour and motivate churchgoers or other members of the congregation to use these applications in order to perceive more spiritual growth or practice the spiritual disciplines more often. This would be of advantage to churchgoers, as the respondents of the survey deemed the applications as very valuable.