WASHINGTON, DC – More people are turning to prayer in the wake of the global crisis following the corona pandemic, research has shown. The research department at the University of Copenhagen has come up with a 50% increase in the number of people searching for prayers in the face of adverse circumstances. According to a survey conducted on Google this March, more people are searching for prayers than during Christmas, Easter, and Ramadan. Google’s search for prayer has reached its highest point in history.
According to Jeannette Zinding Bentzen, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen who led the study, “The daily phenomenon of Google searches in 95 countries shows a significant increase in the number of people searching for prayers during the Coronavirus.” It is also noteworthy that there has been a strong increase since March 11, when the World Health Organization announced that the corona was a pandemic.
Bentzen noted that although the number of prayers is high in Cameroon, Colombia, and Nigeria, even those in the most secular countries in Northern Europe have been searching for prayer. In the case of mobile apps, the premier Bible app in English has been downloaded more than 20,000,000 times in March alone. The Church of England’s “Time to Pray” app has been installed more than 10,000 times since the lockdown began. An increase in the number of prayers in the US has been confirmed in an earlier study by the Pew Research Agency.
