Americans Making Resolutions Aim to Pray and Attend Church More in 2024
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Jan 02, 2024
Nearly six in 10 Americans who make New Year’s Resolutions say they want to pray more and focus on their faith more in 2024, according to a new poll that also found that about half the country is hopeful heading into the new year.
The CBS News/YouGov survey found that 47 percent of Americans feel hopeful heading into 2024, while 22 percent feel discouraged, and 31 percent answer “both equally.”
Just over one-third of Americans (37 percent) say they make New Year’s Resolutions. Among those, 59 percent say they want to “pray or attend religious services more” in 2024, an answer that tied for seventh place with “lose weight.”
The top six answers were: improve health (94 percent), exercise (88 percent), “spending more time in person with people you care about” (84 percent), diet/eat better (81 percent), “learn a new skill, challenge or hobby” (73 percent) and quit a bad habit (70 percent).
Other answers included “spend less time online” (51 percent) and “get more involved with volunteer efforts in the community” (50 percent).
“Americans feel about twice as hopeful as discouraged when they think about 2024,” a CBS News analysis said. “But it's young people in particular who are the most hopeful, with two-thirds feeling this way.”
Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Americans under 30 feel hopeful about 2024. It’s 51 percent among those ages 30-44, 37 percent among 45-64, and 39 percent among those 65 and older.
New Year’s Resolutions, too, are more popular among young people, with 60 percent of those under 30 making them but only 15 percent among those ages 65 and over.
“The young are by far the most likely to be making resolutions for 2024, as opposed to older Americans,” the analysis said, theorizing that “perhaps older Americans feel more complete, or set in their ways, or maybe age has brought the wisdom that a lot of us just don't keep them anyway.”
The poll included interviews with 2,182 adults.
Photo Courtesy: ©GettyImages/Dilok Klaisataporn
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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