Youth and youth workers invited to take survey examining why and how they use social media.
Surely as New Year’s follows Christmas, resolutions to lose weight will follow shortbread cookies and fruitcake. What drives up the scales isn’t the Christmas baking, but its availability. What’s easy shapes us far more than what’s hard.
Social media is easy. It’s easy to sign up, easy to use, easy to pull out of your pocket, and then ever after hard to put down.
A few years ago, schools became concerned about how social media shapes students and started banning phones from classrooms. More recently countries, led by Australia, have been raising the minimum age for social media. Both schools and states are actively trying to reduce its ability to shape children.
Critics point to poor mental health outcomes for children and teens who use social media, but what about spiritual health? Would the platforms that shaped our language with emojis and Algospeak not also shape our souls – and, if so, what should we do about it?
Twelve Canadian partner organizations are researching those questions in a project called the #influencing_faith_study. It aims to understand (1) how social media shapes the faith formation of youth-group-aged students participating in evangelical youth ministries, and (2) how youth ministry workers use it in their ministries.
After two years of initial work, having conducted almost 80 interviews with ministry experts, youth ministry workers and youth, the partnership is now testing the thoughts and insights of those we’ve been talking to on two national surveys.
Survey for youth workers open to April 30
The partnership’s first survey, open until April 30, 2026, looks to hear from youth ministry workers (youth pastors, youth sponsors, camp counsellors, etc., both volunteer and paid).
The survey asks about how and why they use social media in their ministries. “Why?” is an important question to ask for Evangelicals who usually start with “How?”
Youth ministry workers can take the survey in English and French.
Youth can take survey until April 30
The partnership is also looking to hear from the students in our youth groups, camps and other youth ministries about
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how and why they use social media,
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how they engage with faith content,
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and what they think about the social media by their youth groups.
Youth may not be able to adequately assess the risks and benefits associated with participating in survey research because of their developmental stage. This is why the partnership is asking that youth ministry workers, and others, ensure that parents are informed about the #influencing_faith_study and the youth survey before youth are invited to take the youth survey. The youth survey is also open until April 30.
You can help
Would you help the partnership get the word out to youth ministry workers and to youth after ensuring their parents have been informed?
The partnership will be releasing our final public report in September 2026. You can subscribe here for more updates on the #influencing_faith_study.
Please pray for the partnership as it interprets the interview results and survey data.
What is easy does shape us, but so do our conscious decisions. Data-informed research like the Influencing Faith Study allows us to understand the influence of technologies like social media, and to shape how it shapes us and our youth.
Rick Hiemstra is director of research at The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, one of the partners in this study.