Called to Be Where People Are: The Prevalence and Social Support Elements of Catholic Prayer Discourse on Social Medi

Declining prayer group and church attendance among young Catholics is as an area of concern for researchers who assert the importance of a support system in maintaining one's faith in emerging adulthood (Smith, 2014). Concurrently, trends in social media suggest that young people aged 18 to 30 may be using sites like Facebook to seek out online communities that provide them with support and a space to discuss and enrich their prayer lives (Barker, 2009). This paper seeks to understand online prayer communication by determining the prevalence and content of prayer discourse on social media and social support enacted in online prayer discourse on social media. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combined surveys & interviews of Catholic emerging adults. Results indicated that the majority of prayer discourse online happens on Facebook, with 63.8% of survey participants reporting it as their preferred platform for discussing prayer online, and participants reporting highest levels of comfort with prayer discussions there. Activities included posting memes, asking for prayers for self and others, inviting others to events, and "other" unidentified forms of prayer discourse. Although young people tended to not consider prayer discourse an important part of their faith lives, divergent perspectives emerged in the interviews. Some interviewees expressed the value of online prayer discourse for its manner of reaching as many praying people as possible and as a means of evangelizing by showing oneself as an authentic person of faith. However, others expressed concerns with revealing too much information or violating their -- or others' -- privacy. Respondents tended to ask for prayers for themselves and for others they knew without specifying the specific outcome. They identified "helpful" responses to prayer petitions as those which simply affirmed the request or posted a specific prayer, and "unhelpful" responses as those that invalidated the prayer or offered platitudes. Finally, while young people did not seek out social support in posting, moderate correlations were found between respondents' perceived supportiveness and support adequacy and their perception of prayer discourse online as important to their faith lives. These results open the door to deeper and further conversations regarding prayer discourse.