Ryan Burge

You're putting your resume in a stack with a thousand other resumes and no one knows who you are.

So I think in many ways, this dropping out phenomenon actually makes their lives demonstrably worse in ways that they don't see and feel and know.

And religious people are sort of doing well because they've built this social network that they don't.

that is not fully visible to them, but is there for them in their lives to sort of support them through their darkest, most difficult times.

When they lose a job, when they lose a spouse, when they're going through depression or anxiety, those kinds of social organizations are what carry them through.

And I think it's creating this sort of like bifurcation in American society between the haves and the have nots.

And the haves are getting a lot better socially, economically, politically, culturally, and the have nots are doing worse.

And what's even scarier, Derek, is among young people,

18 to 22 years old, the most popular response option to what your present religion is, is nothing in particular.

One third of 18 to 22 year olds say they're nothing in particular.

And it's like you're setting yourself up for failure as you move into adulthood because you don't have the social networks that your parents and grandparents had to help them get through these difficult spots in life.

What are you going to rely on?

The answer for many of them is they're going to watch Twitch and YouTube and they're not going to get TikTok and they're not going to get out in the world and try to make it better because they have no way to do that.

because they have no social connection.

Well, I mean, at first, I do think methodologically a lot of people say, oh, that's problematic, Ryan, because happier people tend to be more religious.

Religious people aren't happy.

You know, like the causal arrow goes the other way.

I think it's also tied up with liberalism versus conservatism.

And no one wants to have this conversation, by the way, but liberals are not as happy as conservatives.

Like, you can cut the data however you want.