Building Virtue Through App Cultures

Abstract

Abstract Digital religions through app cultures provide assets for virtue development among adolescents. Examination of the affordances and deficiencies of app cultures in relation to the resources provided by traditional religions through ideological, social, and transcendent contexts reveals a complex picture. As an ideological context, app cultures make moral standards salient and supply opportunities for meaning-making when properly scaffolded, but they struggle to provide youth a coherent meaning system. As a social context, app cultures afford myriad opportunities for building social capital (though dangers lurk), provide access to models, and can facilitate virtue-building practices if adherence is high and extrinsic rewards do not undermine intrinsic motivation. As a transcendent context, app cultures scaffold prayer and meditation practices that cultivate connection, but smartphones themselves may undermine the necessary focus. Likewise, apps can evoke self-transcendent positive emotions but have yet to emulate the embodied experiences of traditional religions.