Here in Singapore, the Catholic Media Group conducted a survey in conjunction with World Communications Day. It was aimed at uncovering the importance of the internet to Singaporean Catholics. Did they use the Internet a lot and were they making good enough use of it?

Sent out via e-mail on Monday, the 6th of May, respondents had until the Friday of the same week to reply. For the questionnaire, please click HERE.

THE RESULTS

The survey was open for a mere five days due to lack of time and resources. For the same reasons, it was conducted only over e-mail. Nevertheless, the response was encouraging with a total of 183 completed forms received.

The results are divided into two parts: the statistics and the responses to open-ended questions, which includes comments and suggestions. What follows is our take on the results taken as a whole.

An overwhelming 92 per cent of respondents thought Singaporean Catholics should have a strong Internet presence while 86 per cent were in favour of the Church hiring Catholics full-time to run its web sites. These are clear indications that Catholics want the Church to help them navigate the Internet age.

A variety of suggestions as to how the Church could do this were also received.

Asked what they thought of existing Singaporean Catholic web sites, 35 per cent said they were “good” while the same number pegged these as “mediocre”. While only two individuals (1 per cent) described existing Singaporean Catholic web sites as “excellent”, 9 per cent slammed these as “poor”.

More disturbing, perhaps, was that 20 per cent could not grade local Catholic web sites because they did not even know of their existence!

Do You Come Here Often?

Nonetheless, Singaporean Catholics appear to be getting information on the Faith online because 90 per cent said they use the Internet to view Catholic material. About 70 per cent of respondents also described the Internet as an important source of Catholic material.

Singaporean Catholics seem to be heavy users of the Internet.

Most of them (65 per cent) access it several times a day. 34 per cent said they spend one to two hours per session while another 26 per cent spend even more time than that!

In order of frequency, Singapore Catholics use the Internet to e-mail, obtain information, read the news, conduct research and to download multimedia content. In terms of Internet use related specifically to Catholicism, respondents said they go online to obtain news, articles, spiritual reflections, look up Bible verses and obtain Catechism resources.

While there is a fair degree of overlapping in the categories, a rough picture of the various preferences and needs of Singaporean Catholics does emerge in this unprecedented survey.