Social media and new patterns of religiousness among urban millenial muslim in Indonesia

Abstract

Consuming content through social media is a basic necessity in this digital era, including for religious purposes. This study aims to determine and analyze how social media shapes new religious patterns for millennial Muslims in Indonesian urban cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, and Pekanbaru. What motives, meanings, and communication experiences have urban Millennial Muslims passed amid the current onslaught of social media. This study uses an interpretive paradigm with a Schutz Phenomenology approach and Mead's Symbolic Interaction perspective. From 15 informants, it was found that virtual spaces such as social media play a major role in shaping new religious patterns, especially the Islamic pattern of Millennial Muslims. According to the findings of this study, millennial Muslims in large areas of Indonesia, particularly Jakarta, Bandung, and Pekanbaru, employ virtual space (social media) and public space in their activities and religious practices. What is uploaded and posted on social media is motivated by two factors: past motives (because motives) and purpose motives (to motives) in carrying out their life experiences and interpreting the hijrah trend. In virtual spaces such as social media, there are two types of urban Millennial Muslims: scholars and nonscholars. They use social media as a religious "healing" process amid their daily routines. The trend of migration that is increasingly massive in the era of social media is symbolized through lifestyle symbols to form a new identity single to multiidentity. Millennial Scholars are typically linked with specific religious authorities, schools, and manhajs passed down through the bloodline. The nonscholars/non-Cendekia group, on the other hand, is not affiliated with any religious authority and has no offspring from any religious authority; thus, they pursue their own da'wah and religious education through autodidactic methods.