Ali Hammuda – Social Media

			Now without doubt, and it goes without saying, social media has brought with it so much good from an
Islamic perspective, the ability to advertise a talk like this, record it, publish it, share it,
allowing people from the four corners of the globe to benefit from it. The countless brothers and
sisters who spend their evenings thinking about how to carefully craft that next Islamic reminder to
help people find their way back to their religion 1000s of people who found their way to Islam
through social media Quran there is recited Hadith that is promoted misinformation that is corrected
Ilaha illa Allah so much hair and when someone does a good because of something you post expect the
		

			same reward without any of their reward detracting that's brought with it opportunities not just
from an Islamic perspective from a non Muslim secular perspective, a business perspective career
perspective, LinkedIn to know the other fellow professionals out there to know your tribes and and
you know your family to communicate with people in Philistine or Yemen or Pakistan, Somalia, it
helps you discover who your cousins are, your auntie's are your grades are those who want to further
their career, climb up the ladder, the corporate ladder, it helps you do that, by Allah subhanaw.
Taala has permission that's on one side of the spectrum. But on the other side of the spectrum, it
		

			has also brought with it a heap full of harms on the adults and on the children as well. Social
media, a person's nightlife is quite ruined. If you become obsessively addicted with social media,
you can't sleep a proper full night anymore, these blue light emissions that you are absorbing all
of the time, it affects your sleep rhythms. And then if you add to that obsessive Twitch to quickly
remove the fly mode from your phone to check your latest notification, and then you get that next
hit of dopamine and adrenaline and now you're awake and you can't sleep and it becomes even shorter
overnight. So you're knackered in the night you can't sleep and by day you're knackered because you
		

			haven't slept and then your whole life becomes a misery. That's one thing. A second thing, think
about your ability to be alone with Allah alone with yourself. Young boys, young girls can't do that
anymore. Because social media has, for the most part removed that ability from us, because every
opportunity that you're not speaking to someone or working or doing something, it's an opportunity
to put your hand in your pocket and to see what's going on on the other side of the world. So you
have no time for yourself. So with a passage of 510 15 years, you lose the ability of finding
contentment with just being alone to sit in halwa privacy with Elijah and a lot of us can do that.
		

			Especially the younger generation, you're looking outwardly all of the time outward, the outward,
the outward. I think when you're sat alone, you're looking outwardly into what the world is doing.
You are unable to sit and to think inwardly for a moment about your Lord Subhana wa Tada. And this
is an issue. One of the greatest ways of boosting Eman is learning how to sit alone without a phone
without the friend without their parent for a moment in your day or night. And for many of us, we
can't do that anymore. Because we feel that there's value in us that's missing. So we try to find
that value elsewhere. There's heaps of evidence now to prove beyond fact that some of the loneliest,
		

			saddest, most depressed and anxious people on planet earth or those who use their phones or social
media specifically most it's interesting, you think that the more friends you have online, the less
lonely you feel. That's not the situation that's not the science at all. Actually, it's like the
more chocolate you have in an aisle in the supermarket does not help you curb your desire for
chocolate any more than an aisle that has fewer jokers knowingly. Why because you are constantly
comparing your life you're miserable or boring life that doesn't have vacations doesn't have
business doesn't have the Jordans you're comparing your life to the highlight reel of your neighbor
		

			to the highlight reel of someone in Australia and they've removed all of the blemishes and the flaws
of their data. So they feel lonely social media use if you're isolated, they feel inadequate look at
how social media has for many people made them completely socially incompetent, especially maybe the
younger generation Gen Z they can't hold a long and deep and meaningful conversation with you
looking at you eye to eye that's gone because over the passage of yours when you're obsessively
using social media what happens your mind now is hardwired and short circuited to only be able to
deal with short comments lol thumbs up likes hashtags shares, you lose the ability to become an
		

			interpersonal human being you can't do it anymore. So social media teaches you that if there is a
problem in your relationships, don't worry, you can just get out of it. Just click the Blog button
End of story does that represent reality? Reality is far more sophisticated than that far more
messy, far more entangled, far more intertwined. You've got to be intelligent, you got to be
socially smart. You got to look at people you got to talk with them. You got to know how to deal
with difficult circumstances. Social media says to you that this is an image that you gave over you
impress over you share your comment you like that's it. It doesn't teach you to look at a woman for
		

			example, as a mother