The Minneapolis Star-Tribune posted a podcast today about holiday spirituality, which included a discussion of new work from Mark Chaves, a Duke University sociologist studying churches in the United States. Technology is the opiate of the masses…

One of the biggest changes in churches over the past decade is a huge increase in the use of computer technology to keep in touch with current members and to reach out to new ones, according to a Duke University study that was released — appropriately enough — in the online version of the journal Sociology of Religion.

An average of 10,000 church websites are being launched every year, according to the National Congregations Study, Wave II, a follow-up to a 1998 study. In the earlier study only a handful of churches used e-mail to communicate with members. Now 60 percent are doing it.

Researchers conducted interviews with 1,500 congregations representing a cross-section of religious traditions. For the follow-up study, they went back to the same churches.

“This is the first study that has tracked change over time in a nationally representative sample of congregations,” said Mark Chaves, a professor of sociology, religion and divinity and the lead researcher. “We’ve never been able to do that before. This research tells us what is changing and what is staying the same.”

Read the full story.

The New York Times reports on the apparent downturn in major cosmetic surgeries as the US economy seems to be faltering. The article, ‘Putting Vanity (and Botox?) on Hold,’ explores how even with the advent of Botox in 2002 – making wrinkle reduction a more affordable luxury – people may still be cutting back on their body alterations. The Times asks, “But now, as the country plunges into recession, will financial hardship demote the pursuit of physical perfection?”

Time to call in the sociologists…

In uncertain times, people tend to re-evaluate their priorities, dismissing aspirational purchases as frivolous, said Victoria Pitts-Taylor, a professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

“Cosmetic surgery is going to become the new S.U.V., something that you can do without, that is less justifiable for you and your family,” said Dr. Pitts-Taylor. She is the author of “Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture.”

A second opinion…

Deborah A. Sullivan, a sociology professor at the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University, said that people who feel forced to forgo cosmetic medicine might experience a loss of control in their lives.

“I think it will intensify the sense of downward mobility: ‘I can’t even get my wrinkles treated,’ ” Dr. Sullivan said. She is the author of “Cosmetic Surgery: The Cutting Edge of Commercial Medicine in America.”

Against a tide of people eschewing cosmetic medicine in the new economy, she also predicted a counter current of consumers having procedures to feel proactive.

“People who would not have considered it, when they get laid off at 45, 50, 55 and are back on the job market, might consider it as they try to enhance their human capital,” she said.

Read the full story.

Thursday morning USA Today reported on a new findings from a study of the Pew Research Center’s survey data, which shows that Americans are feeling pulled closer to home. 

USA Today reports:

The majority of U.S.-born adults (56%) have not lived outside their birth state, suggests research out Wednesday, and of the 37% who have stayed in their hometown, three-quarters say the main reason is because they want to be near family. Fifteen percent have lived in four or more states.

Pew Research Center’s survey paints a vivid portrait about how Americans feel about their hometowns at a time when geographic mobility is at the lowest levels since the government began keeping statistics in 1948. Pew cites government that data shows 13.2% moved from 2006 to 2007, down from a high of 21.2% in 1951. Census figures to be released in 2009 confirm the trend, showing a dip to 11.9%.

The sociological commentary…

Duke University sociologist Angela O’Rand says economic uncertainty causes people to dig in where they are, making them less likely to risk moving. “Family provides in an uncertain world some level of safety and certainty,” O’Rand says.

The latest study on happiness (Fowler and Christakis) that has been all over the news and featured on the Crawler made The Colbert Report earlier this week.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports this morning on recent speculation that financial woes from the deepening recession may mean that families will be having fewer children. The AJC reports on how parents are increasingly filled with doubts about their ability to provide for additional children as job prospects shrink, retirement savings plummet, and home values continue to fall.

Many economists fear that the recession will become one of the worst since the Great Depression. When that hit in the 1930s, the birthrate dropped precipitously, and the effects of having fewer people in the work force rippled through the economy two decades later. “If you can’t pay your mortgage, the last thing on your mind is to have another child,” said Dr. Khalil Tabsh, chief of obstetrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, who expects to start seeing a drop in pregnancies.

Bring in the sociologists…

Starting or growing a family often becomes more of a financial decision than an emotional one as parents calculate the sometimes overwhelming costs of health care, child care, education and other necessities, said Kathleen Gerson, a sociologist at New York University.

Though birthrates usually decline in a recession, there is a countervailing theory popular with some economists: Births may swell. Some women who lose their jobs may decide it’s an opportune time to raise a child, said Gary Becker, a University of Chicago economist and sociologist.

Read more.

The Los Angeles Times ran a story this week about a new study that details the persistence of negative racial stereotypes, reporting that “Changes in social standing such as falling below the poverty line or going to jail made people more likely to be perceived as black and less likely to be seen as white,” according to the researchers.

Earlier this week an article in the New York Times reported on new findings that New York City is becoming increasingly diverse… according to recent Census data. The Times reports that “since 2000, the number of young children living in parts of Lower Manhattan has nearly doubled. The poverty rate declined in all but one New York City neighborhood… A majority of Bronx residents are Hispanic. And the number of white people living in Harlem more than tripled, helping to drive up median household income there by nearly 20 percent — the fourth-highest jump in the city.”

These latest findings are the result of new detailed demographic data for smaller areas (district) and the combination of three years of surveys. This work on trends related to race, ethnicity, and education constitutes some of the clearest statistical evidence available. 

The sociologist weighs in…

The latest results [on housing costs, discussed in the article] represent a three-year rolling count by the American Community Survey, a continuing profile of the country compiled by the Census Bureau, from 2005 to 2007.

“It was taken on the eve of a downturn,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, who analyzed the results for The New York Times. “There’s been a shift in the cities, but can it sustain itself? The increase in children in Manhattan, for example, is fueled by the fact that the parents have a lot of money. But that is tied to the financial industry, directly or indirectly.”

Read more.

See the changes mapped by the Times.

USA Today reports on a new study which suggests that race is a ‘changeable marker of social status.’

The data collected between 1979 and 2002 and analyzed by sociologists at universities in California and Oregon show change over time in both racial self-identification and the way people perceive the racial identity of others.

“There is much less ‘agreement’ about what race a person is than is commonly thought,” says co-author Aliya Saperstein, a sociologist at the University of Oregon-Eugene, “Fluctuations in both self-identification and how one is perceived by others happen more often than they would or should if race is something obvious or unambiguous.”

And that leads to an even more striking result: Those who are unemployed, incarcerated or in poverty are more likely to be classified and self-identify as black than white, regardless of past identifications. In about 20% of the 12,686 respondents, at least one change was noted in an interviewer’s perception.

The study found that setbacks in social status made it more likely that someone would be seen as black.

Read more.

This past weekend Christianity Today ran a story about ‘Megachurch Misinformation’ in which they cited not one, not two, but three sociologists. Check it out…

The evidence shows that more and more people are attending large churches. Duke sociologist Mark Chaves writes, “In every denomination on which we have data, people are increasingly concentrated in the very largest churches, and this is true for small and large denominations, for conservative and liberal denominations, for growing and declining denominations. This trend began rather abruptly in the 1970s, with no sign of tapering off.”

Furthermore, the 1,250 megachurches in the US in 2007 show remarkable strength across a range of indicators, according to Hartford Seminary sociologist Scott Thumma and Dave Travis’s Beyond Megachurch Myths. Thumma and Travis take seriously the stereotypes of megachurches as impersonal, selfish, shallow, homogenous, individualistic and dying but they do not find the accusations match the data.

Even Baylor sociologist Rodney Stark’s What Americans Really Believe lauds the strengths of megachurches as compared to small churches. “Those who belong to megachurches display as high a level of personal commitment as do those who attend small congregations” (p.48). This is significant because some of Stark’s earlier work claimed growth dilutes commitment. In 2000, he declared, “Congregational size is inversely related to the average level of member commitment . . . In all instances, rates of participation decline with congregational size, and the sharpest declines occur when congregations exceed 50 members.”

This weekend the Calgary Herald reported on a new study about the effects of the internet on social relationships. 

…A new Statistics Canada study has found that far from promoting social isolation, the Internet is enhancing relationships with family and friends. The study delves into the social and civic uses of the Internet in Canada, with one of its authors, Statistics Canada analyst Ben Veenhof, calling the results a “two sided tale of how social cohesion is being transformed through technology.”

This two sided tale suggests that heavy internet users spend less time with family and friends in person, but that the internet can also serve as a ‘social device,’ meaning that participation in social organizations and involvement with community members can also be a benefit of web use. 

Meanwhile, a University of Toronto professor of sociology, who is one of the authors of the study, says research knocks down the myth that people are living their lives only on the Internet. “We find that very, very few people are online only,” Barry Wellman said. “Almost always it’s a mixed relationship –that they’re making arrangements or talking with their friends in between actually seeing them face-to-face.”

Wellman said almost all relationships people have online are with those they already know. In fact, he says, it’s generally more social people who are greater Internet users.

Read more.