Still Not a Lot of Research? Re-Examining HCI Research on Religion and Spirituality

A decade after Buie and Blythe’s review "Spirituality: There’s an App for That! (But Not a Lot of Research)", this sequel assesses the evolving landscape of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research on religion and spirituality. While the enduring importance of religion and spirituality for humanity and its influence on technology use remains, the last decade has seen transformative shifts catalysed by technological advances and the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores whether and how HCI research on religion and spirituality has also changed. Providing a snapshot of the current research, we document and reflect on changes in the lines of research with a shift towards community, an increased consideration of religion and spirituality in related areas such as health, education, and society, and the broadening of challenges for HCI research on religion and spirituality.

Conference paper