Increased Web usage results in loss of religious dedication, study finds

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Researchers have reportedly concluded that there is apparently a direct link between an increased use of the Internet and a decline in religious dedication.

According to a research study published in the MIT Technology Review, between 1990 and 2010, 25 million Americans shed their religion, at least officially.

Using the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, plotted the rise of the Internet against this fall in holy devotion, Cnet reported.

Downey said that Internet use decreases the chance of religious affiliation, though he added that it doesn't account for all of it.

While the researcher believes that fewer people are being born into religious families, he can only attribute 25 percent of the drop in religiosity to this factor, the report added.