How are social networks influencing the way we pray?

Connect with your faith

Yes, the way we pray is changing - and much of this is directly related to the advance of social media. What used to be silent, intimate and private is now gaining ground in videos, captions, trends and even filters. The question "how social media is influencing the way we pray" It's not just about technology. It's about exposure, the need for validation and turning faith into content.

Praying is no longer just a gesture between the individual and God. In many cases, it is also an aesthetic choice, a moment that is recorded and shared. Is this a good thing? Is it bad? Is it real? The answer, like everything involving faith and human behavior, is not simple - but it is urgent to reflect on.

The prayer left the room and went to the feed

For centuries, prayer was seen as a private act. A moment of encounter between the creature and the sacred. With the growth of social media, especially between 2020 and 2025, this space began to be reframed.

Videos of guided prayers, reels with excerpts from psalms, phrases of gratitude on carousels: all this has become part of the daily spiritual experience. Not that this is wrong - but the fact is that praying has also become a visual language.

The question "how social media is influencing the way we pray" then passes through this new scenario: where silence has become a legend and faith has often become a filter.

Has faith become content?

Often, yes. And that can go two ways:

1# The real connection - Where the content serves to bring people together, awaken faith, console, inspire and teach. In this case, the web is a bridge. Digital prayer is sincere. The message touches and transforms.

2# Religious performance - Where praying becomes a way of gaining likes, feeding the ego or maintaining an image. Here, the web becomes a stage. And prayer loses its original meaning.

Of course, it's not up to anyone to judge the other person's intentions. But it's important for each person to ask themselves: am I praying or just being seen praying?

Has prayer become more accessible?

Yes, and that's one of the great positive points. People who previously had no contact with spiritual practices began to find them on the networks, daily access to messages, reflections and prayers. This has led many to rediscover their spirituality - or at least reconnect with something greater.

Prayer apps, YouTube channels with morning prayers, TikToks with words of comfort: all of these have the potential to bring faith where it couldn't reach before. Technology, in this case, doesn't remove the sacred - it expands its reach.

And the risk of superficiality?

There is. By turning everything into a format for quick consumption, we run the risk of living a shallow faithIt's all about catchphrases and exciting videos. The danger isn't in praying through a screen - it's in stop there.

A faith that lives only in the feed, without an interior dive, without time for silence, without space for listening... will weaken. That's why it's necessary to use networks as an entry point - but not as a substitute for real experience.

The pressure to pray "beautifully" in public

Another consequence of the networks is that many people have started to feeling pressured to pray the right way, with the right words, at the right time. As if the prayer had to be worthy of going viral.

This behavior creates blockages. People start to think that their prayer is "too simple" or "lacking in power" because they don't know how to express it as they see it in the videos. And that's dangerous - because real prayer doesn't have to be performative. It just needs to be honest.

Reflecting on how social media is influencing the way we pray also involves this silent demand to appear spiritual.

Social networks as a space for communion

Despite the risks, it is also true that social networks can be real space for communion. Prayer groups are formed on WhatsApp. Intercession circles that take place via DM. People asking for and receiving prayer through comments. And that's beautiful.

Shared faith, when it truly comes, unites. It strengthens. It makes someone on the other side of the screen feel accompanied. In times of crisis, mourning, anxiety - sometimes it's a prayer video that sustains someone for another day.

The balance between the intimate and the public

Perhaps the biggest challenge today is to find the balance between what is lived inside and what is exposed outside. It's okay to share a prayer. You have to be careful with your motivation.

Do you pray on video because you want to reach lives? Or because you want to reach followers? Do you share your faith to inspire? Or to maintain an image?

These questions are not judgments. They are invitations to conscience. Because, at the end of the day, God is not impressed by filters. He moves with truth.

And where was the silence?

In the midst of so much content, so much audio, so much video... silence has become a luxury. But prayer is often born there. When you stop. When you don't have to show it. When nobody sees, but God hears.

Social networks are incredible. They connect us. But sometimes, what the soul needs most is disconnect to reconnect. True prayer still lives in the simple. In the honest. In the silent.

See also: Fighting for faith: see the movie synopsis

May 17th, 2025