Smartphones and the education of religious youth in Indonesia: Highway to hell or path of righteousness?

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in secondary schools in Manado, Indonesia, this article examines digital infrastructures and their accompanying (im)moral potentialities in the development of Christian and Muslim youth as evaluated by educators. On the one hand, smartphones are portrayed as portals to a globalizing world in which youth might succumb to negative influences (with a particular anxiety surrounding pornography) based on their perceived inchoate moral development and insufficiently strong religious foundation. On the other hand, these teachers and administrators recognize the potential that smartphones have to be used for deepening spiritual engagement, connection, and proselytization. This particular case study offers insights into the ways in which institutions charged with religious and moral development of youth seek to leverage rather than categorically reject mainstream culture, navigating the globalizing influences of the secular world toward the possibility of attaining a greater good.