The “most effective space for sharing Jesus online” is YouTube, according to a new study carried out for Youth For Christ in the UK.
The research – which followed on from a 2017 study which found three-quarters of Generation Z engaged with YouTube daily – found that 41 per cent of young people ranked YouTube as their preferred social media platform followed by Facebook (17 per cent) and Snapchat (14 per cent). Thirty-two per cent of those surveyed said visiting YouTube was the online activity they are most likely to do in their free time followed by visiting social media sites and gaming (both 25 per cent).
PICTURE: Christian Wiediger/Unsplash
Eighty-six per cent said they usually watched YouTube alone and 59 per cent said they mostly watched at night. The research also showed that 88 per cent of those surveyed said they’d never tried to contact a YouTuber directly. Of the 12 per cent that had, 25 per cent said they did so to play online with them and 19 per cent said they did so to talk to them.
The survey, carried out online in September last year, involved 1001 young people aged between 11 to 18-years-old from across the UK. Forty-three per cent of those surveyed indicated they were Christian.
Writing in the research report, Neil O’Boyle, national director of Youth for Christ in the UK, said the findings – which showed that, with regard to Generation Z, the “most effective space for sharing Jesus online is YouTube” – will “prove itself invaluable as Youth for Christ pioneer new expressions of digital evangelism”.
Noting that YFC’s desire is for every young person across Britain to be given an opportunity to “hear about Jesus”, he added that the organisation still believed “that real transformation occurs at the relational level, even for a digital generation of young people”.
“Youth for Christ will be placing a greater emphasis on the digital but if young people aren’t engaging in face-to-face relationships with other Christians, their long-term growth as followers of Jesus will suffer.”
Other findings in the study show that 52 per cent of those surveyed viewed online relationships as friendships while 25 per cent said they knew people online but that they weren’t their friends and 11 per cent said they didn’t trust people they knew online. Eight-five per cent of those surveyed believed they can be authentic online.
