Hosai Mojaddidi – Parenting in the Age of Social Media
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letter came that hadn't been announced that it will sit at
Monash took an MBA he would say that I will vote no, have you been
on payments of a loan, he said that he was like he just
said, I wanna make a loan for millennials. But again,
for those of you who don't know me, my name is Maasai, which I
believe that I'm here very native move back about a year ago, to the
Bay Area, I was in Southern California for almost 10 years in
South Bay. But I'm so honored to be here with all of you tonight, I
want to thank you for the new year and all of the orders and the MCC
for inviting me to be here. I actually did this same talk at the
srcic. I think that a month and a half, maybe two months ago. And it
was very well received. But I realized afterwards and through
the course of the discussion, that this is just the beginning of a
conversation on this topic, we have to continue to really talk
about this issue. So I was just so happy that I was invited to do
this here and then to have the honor of Dr. Eddie to join the
conversation because of course her perspective mashallah is
invaluable to hear from the mental health perspective is just so
critical. It's such a critical part of this discussion. So, as I
mentioned, the topic for this evening is titled parenting in the
age of social media, knowing the benefits and harms.
And so my role is gonna be I'm going to be presenting a well
documented research, anecdotal information about the dangers of
social media. And that's why the disclaimers out there, because
some of the content that I'm gonna be presenting is, you know, again,
for more mature audiences, so please be mindful, I don't want
any child to hear some of the stuff that I'm presenting in my
shotgun where it might pique their curiosity in ways that we don't
want. So please be mindful of that. And, you know, follow
through with the instructions regarding etc.
Before I get into the discussion, I actually wanted to first do a
little quiz. I really liked audience participation. So
I will, at times ask you different questions. And please feel free to
just shout out ministers, inshallah. And we'll go from that.
So the first quiz that I wanted to sort of ask you about is your your
knowledge, find out how much you know about the history of media
and technology in the average American household? So what I'm
going to do is I'm going to read out a list of different
technologies that are produced to us over the course of history. And
what I want you to do is, tell me how many years you think it took
for this particular production to build technology to reach the 50
million households in America? Are the instructions clear? Okay, so
let's do a trailer. So the first one I'm gonna ask you about is
radio. How long? Or how many years? Do you think it took for
radio to enter 50 million US households? How many years? 151
point 515 1515 1515 years. Okay. Have
you said 15 years? Anybody else?
Under 100 years?
Okay, for 50 million. Anybody else? shut out the answers. How
many years did it take for the radio to reach 50 million US
households?
50, close to two years. Okay. So 38 years of touch.
Okay, we will do a quick pause.
shortly.
Thank you actually prefer not having to hold it. Okay. So 30
years for the radio,
the television.
How many years did it take for the television to
to enter the to enter 50 million US households?
Five years. I mean, given how, you know how many there are now that
could be but anybody else have some guesses?
I'm sorry.
15. Very close. 13 years. So the television took 13 years from when
it was first invented to get to 50 million US households, the
internet. How many years?
You can see there's a pattern going on. And five very close four
years for the Internet to reach 50 million US households social
networking.
Close actually less than two to 16 months.
Smartphone apps
are pretty good. Nine months.
Right? So.
So clearly, this shows how fast we're moving. Right? And really
that's what this talk is about. It's about focusing on the fact
that technology is becoming more and more advanced and more
ubiquitous and access
To information from the Internet, smartphones tablets has reached
unprecedented levels, we really have no way to measure just how
much information we can access from our fingertips. But we can be
certain that a lot of what's floating around freely in
cyberspace is incredibly dangerous to our mental health, physical
health, spiritual health and general well being. Now, just as a
quick side note, a respected Swiss scientist by the name of Conrad
Gesner, he might have actually been the first to raise the alarm
about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he
described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data, and
that this overabundance was both confusing and harmful to the mind.
The media now Echo has concerns with reports on the unprecedented
risks of living in an always on digital environment.
One little
thing worth mentioning here, Gessner never wants to use email
and was completely ignorant about computers. Why not because he was
a technophobe. But because he died in 1565, his warnings referred to
the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the
printing press. So that's just to give you perspective about at that
time, this was his, you know, I mean, thinking of the printing
press, that is, you know, over it's too much. So just look at
what we are consuming in terms of information, right, and how much
his words rang true to all of us, I'm sure we all agreed, but to
find out that this man, you know, lived hundreds of years and
hundreds of years ago, but still have that same sort of perspective
is pretty, you know, alarming, but tells you that how much further
we've gone and not in the right direction. So
every single day, there are countless news stories about
students and children all across the world, who have somehow been
harmed by the internet, because of the internet and through the
Internet, whether it's cyber bullying, sexual predation, *
trafficking, child *, or a long and disturbing list of
other possibilities. The bottom line is that the internet is no
place where any child or even adult for that, for that matter,
is truly safe. Right, this idea of safety, we just, there's just too
much out there.
And even if you have all the safety measures in place, if
you're, you know, using personal passwords, if you have restricted
accounts, if you're using services like net nanny or other parental
control, there's still many, many risks posed, especially to
children, which is what we're going to talk about today.
Just to give you a little bit of story about being vulnerable
online, this happened to me a couple of months ago, and it's
happened I one of my accounts got hacked, and it was probably one of
the worst hours of my life because I had all of my banking and other
really important information saved there. And I went into total panic
hunter that was resolved quickly. But that was one, just example
vulnerability. But recently, about a month ago, I got an email from a
friend on Facebook, someone that I knew, but you know, not very well.
And she, you know, had a link, it was a YouTube link with my face on
it. It was like a video. And she, you know, she just said, Jose has
this view. And I freaked out because I looked at you know,
there's a YouTube link, it's my face. I'm like, what, and it
shows, you know, my YouTube shows, like the number of views on the
video had like, over I think 500,000 views. So I like freaked
out. I'm like, wait a second, you know, I've done videos apart. I
know, I think the most I've ever gotten is like 2k Where did this
where did this video come from? 500,000. So part of me was like,
you know, like intrigued but also scared, because what if someone
had, you know, misrepresented me somehow, I come to find out that
yes, this, this is a you know, a scam that happens to many people
on Facebook. And it is a way for to, you know, again, exploit you
to somehow,
you know, take over information on your computer. So humbled, I kind
of resolved it before, but it was just one tiny example of how even
someone who I consider myself pretty tech savvy in terms of
trying to be ahead of things, how I almost got, you know, caught up
into something like that. So just imagine if you can happen to us as
adults, most of us that are educated, we live in the hub of,
you know, technology, for the most part that we can if we're
vulnerable, what about our children? Right, so let's just
talk about the dangers. Actually, before we get to that. Another
question. I'm going to ask you guys, how many hours a day do you
think kids are spending on technology in general, just throw
out a number, you know, 24 hours in a day, how many hours are in
order? We're looking at kids from maybe about age eight to 18. So in
this range 589 Brothers 10 You guys are closer. According to a
recent study kids age eight
to eight teams spend 11 and a half hours per day, using some form of
technology. This includes computers, televisions, mobile
phones, video games, and with many of these hours, engaging two or
more technologies simultaneously. Again, to give you perspective,
since most kids are awake for 15 to 16 hours a day, somewhere
between 71 to 76% of their days are spent digitally, digitally
engaged, okay, again, just think about that. And, you know, I, I
homeschool my kids, but I know many families who use you know,
whose kids are in public schools or other schools, where technology
is now a big part of the classroom, right? They bring in
computers, iPads, they do a lot of stuff online. So factoring all of
that when you consider screen time for your children, because they're
getting that throughout the day. And then they come home and want
to play a video game or want to work on some apps on their phone.
This is where this 11 and a half hour starts to make more sense,
right? It's like, wow, it's adding up. But sometimes we're not
thinking about all that time that they spent on it in school. So now
let's just talk about we're going to be frank here. Again, another
quick disclaimer for anybody who's entering late into the discussion.
We mentioned this at the beginning, a lot of the content
that we have is not for small children, or that I'm going to be
presenting I'm gonna be sharing stories that are for mature
audiences. So I please ask that you take your children to the
babysitting.
A new poll released by Susan Netmums revealed shocking
statistics on internet use by children, the survey sample was of
825, children aged seven to 16. And also the survey also sampled
adults close to about 1200. Adults. Again, another question
for you guys. How many children from this sample group between age
seven to 16, do you think have seen online * throw out
a number, I still see some small children, parents, please, I'm
sorry.
90% 75% 90% 9500 of those are really high numbers. Thank God,
it's not that high. But it's still pretty significant. 42% of
children admit that they've seen online * between this
age range seven to 16. That's nearly 50% of the sample. One in
16 have been exposed to hardcore *. And if you don't know
the difference, I mean, I don't want to tell you that difference.
But it is something that you should know, as a parent of Allah,
it's just the world that we live in, we have to know these
terminologies to understand the difference, not that one is better
than the other, although they're all terrible, but it's just a
matter of being informed. The fact that six, that one in 16, I've
seen things that are, you can't erase those images, they're there,
they leave an imprint, that is spiritually and mentally and
mentally, emotionally, even very, very damaging. But those are
things that cannot be forgotten, what in 12, have exchanged
messages with sexual content to other people, while one in 25 have
sent graphic photos of themselves. And every day, you will hear
stories if you're, you know, at all, you know, connected or
following different news stories, you'll always find stories about
how some child you know, got their pictures somehow ended up being
passed around in high school. And you know, they're through social
media. And then in many cases, they've led to suicide. I mean,
there's documented cases of this happening right here in our world,
where you know, by even by accident, sometimes these things
happen, but then all the leads to that. So 25% of children get away
with pretending to be older than they are. And this is something
that we really have to be mindful of the fact that nowadays, all it
takes for a child to access online * is to visit a
* site. And to click a just a checkbox that says, I'm 18
years or older, there's no further, you know, process,
there's no checking for identification, there's nothing
else required. They've made it all. So easy for a reason,
obviously, because that's what they want to do. But we have to be
again, mindful that kids can be can pretend to be much older and
get access to things if we allow them to access in the first place.
And that's where as parents, we have to really look at what access
do they have and am I really being observant or not almost three in
10 Parents 29% let their kids use the internet without any
restrictions or supervision. So if you are that parents and I was
talking to Dr. Annie earlier today about this topic, and I was just
mentioning one of the problems that we I think as parents and I
have two boys are very young, but I think as you know, parents that
I've spoken to who have teenagers, one of the problems that we get
caught up in is the friend you know, wanting to be the friend,
parent or you know have that role in in our, in our children's lives
where they look at us as friends and stuff.
Sometimes because we're afraid of, you know, losing a connection with
them or that they're going to turn away from us, we might get a
little too relaxed about our rules, thinking, Oh, no, they're
going to be angry at me, they're gonna be resentful towards me,
they're going to hate me. So it's like, okay, fine, I'll give in,
I'll give you this, whatever you want, if you wind it up. And this
can actually, you know, it really opens up so many problems, because
we're not thinking, well, it's a short sighted, you know, fix, not
necessarily, but it is. Because it's, you know, helping, it's
giving you some temporary relief of your old guilt. But then, in
the long term, you're opening up the Pandora's box for your child
and our role more important than being their friend has been their
protector. So the idea that, you know, three and 10 parents are
just kind of like, okay, fine, you can go and you know, surf the
internet, without me even being there, or letting go, these
gadgets go inside bedrooms, that to lock. I mean, these are things
we have to be mindful of. And we'll talk more about that in a
little bit. I do have more to present here, but just you know, I
want you to be comfortable if you have anything to any input to
offer or questions to feel free, you know, it's a conversation that
I kind of am going but I want to get through the content because
inshallah we also have Dr. Reddy here. And I definitely want to
hear from her. So I'm rushing a little bit, but please feel free
to answer ask any questions at any point.
Another question for you. What do you think is the youngest age of
children whose parents allow them to go online? The youngest age,
like we talked about 8761 16% of parents allowed children who are
three years
or older to go or younger, excuse me to go online? Three years?
Because I think it's so cute. It's it's innocent, oh, that in these
on ABC Mouse or whatever, and it's like, okay, it's okay, I'm gonna
go with, you know, coke, I'm gonna go take a shower, you sit at the
computer, you do things. But as we all know, it just takes one wrong
click right one back, or one forward arrow or one little ad
that you shouldn't see. And it's over all the blood, they're seeing
things they shouldn't be seeing. According to another study, 45% of
kids eight to 11 year old, eight to 11 years old, use social
networking sites, okay. For the eight to 11 year olds, we found
that the top four sites actually does anybody know, what do you
think are the top sites that these kids are going to? Let's just test
your knowledge. This is where you really want to see how well
informed you are about what kids are doing, not what adults are
doing what children are doing, because it's they do have
different, you know, interests. So what do you guys think? What are
the top four ads for this great group eight to 11? I mean, excuse
me, not ads, social networking sites or websites that kids enjoy.
Snapchat, we know Snapchat, that's a social media, YouTube, YouTube.
Okay. Very good. You've gotten one so far of the ones that are listed
here, just one YouTube is on the list, Snapchat, for this
demographic is not necessary. It's not on the list.
Basically, Facebook, very good. I know, it's kind of surprising
because I, I kind of associate Facebook with more of a chore like
adult, you know, platform, but apparently, kids between eight and
11 are also on Facebook. So a tool, you know, Facebook, YouTube,
we have and then there's two other that I had never heard about until
I started doing the research for this, which is called Moshi
Monsters. Does anybody know this? Moshi Monsters that raise your
hand if you've heard this? Or your kids know this? Okay, so we have
Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin,
Club Penguin, you guys know. So these four are their top sites for
children. Between the ages of eight and 11, the most popular
activities at this age laws are playing games, signup, messaging,
posting comments and posting their own status updates, okay, just
again, to kind of look at analyze the behavior, like what are they
doing on these sites, they're engaging, obviously, that's what
social networking is, it's communicating. But there is also a
cycle that, that you start so early, the cycle of what what is
this cycle that we're feeding where we allow children to
constantly, you know, have this type of interaction where they get
immediate feedback. You know, what does it it's like, I go and I post
something, someone likes it, I feel validated, right? And now
I've created this need, where it's like, I constantly need
validation. It's, it's just immediate, you know, instant
gratification instant satisfaction. I can see if people
like what I'm doing is whatever you know, so creates evidence at
such an early age to want to think about how that is going to affect
them as they move forward in life.
So while many of us know the inherent dangers and
except the internet, generally post, we've talked about some of
these things. We may be blind or may have a sort of a blind turn a
blind eye to seemingly benign aspects of the internet. We
mentioned. You know, one app, in particular Snapchat, it's a
colorful app. What's the, the,
the, what's the word? I'm looking for an icon, the, the logo? Or,
you know, the main thing of Snapchat? What is it? It's a
friendly, cute, go straight. So this is how they glore children
and youth. They make it really fun and yellow and bright, right. And
then we have Twitter, which is like a little cute bird. We have a
meerkat. That's another app. Friendly robot, right? For Reddit.
So there's, if you look at the kind of, you know, the intent
behind some of these apps, they are appealing to younger minds,
they want young, impressionable minds to kind of oh, you know,
feel some connection to it. So this is, you know, again, pay
attention to this, because it's all very intentional. Now,
snap, a snapshot, I'm gonna kind of go through some of these, just
to again, for those who don't know anything about these applications,
just so that, you know, why, what they're used for how they're used.
And, and then we'll, we'll get into some more content here. But
Snapchat, the name of the cute little ghost is actually Ghostface
chilla. Okay, that's based on Ghostface Killah, the Wu Tang
Clan, I had no idea about that. And the reason why they use this
ghost is because it represents the whole premise of Snapchat, which
is there and then go on. Right? So it's in existence, and then it
disappears, right?
And so
this kind of, you know, again, reminds us or, I think, if we want
to think about the digital footprint, because some people
think, oh, it's no big deal, you know, and Muslim kids are doing
this, I'm just gonna be very frank, Muslim kids are not, you
know, protect our, you know, impervious to these things they're
going through, they are affected by the culture around them. So I
think sometimes we get in this thing like, Oh, our children will
do that. Actually, they're doing it. And what I mean, especially
with Snapchat, one of the things that is it's such as known for its
associated with is sexting, which is a term that again, if you don't
know it, look it up. But it's something that's very, very common
amongst teenagers, even as young as you know, older elementary kids
are even doing this, where they're, you know, exchanging
inappropriate messages with pictures. And so this idea that,
Oh, it's there, but then it's gone really quickly, makes people think
like, oh, it's safe. But many people don't know that you can
actually take screenshots on Snapchat. So is it really gone?
Right? If I, if you send something and you think, oh, it's gonna be
gone in 30 seconds? Not necessarily. So this is something
Unfortunately, many people learn the hard way. But parents have to
be kind of, again, mindful that.
That yeah, it's not as safe, you know, as it kind of presents
itself.
Let's see.
So we talked about between the ages of 811, which were, you know
that that's that demographic, but what do you think is the most
popular apps according what teenagers are with older kids?
What do you we mentioned some but God and charlatan so this is a top
10 list that I have? Instagram. Good. We know about Instagram,
it's on the list. We know about Snapchat, we mentioned it.
Twitter, actually, yeah, Twitter is on the list. Anything else?
WhatsApp? That's number one, by the way. So whoever said that, you
know your stuff. WhatsApp is the number one app for teens. Okay,
according to a study on lifewire.com in October 2016. So
it's pretty recent, that this is when things change all the time,
but at least for the past few months or so, this is relevant. So
what's happening number one, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, Tumblr,
and then these are ones that I had never heard before. And you can if
you've heard of them, raise your hand feed, pH Edd, you know,
anybody else no feed, famous or one person but again, as parents
or educators or people who have maybe a nieces and nephews that
are teens, we should be always ahead of the game. We should know
what these things are. So you know, knowledge feed kick K ik, I
mean, I've heard of kick. Okay, Michelle, you need to come up
here, sister. You know, Oh, yes. Okay. ask.fm. Again, top 10 list,
Twitter, Google Plus. So these are all you know, the things that
teenagers are really into and now what are they about? We know
Snapchat, we already kind of went over that. But feed is popular
because it's built to offer the best components of all social
networks, while remaining heavy on the multimedia side of a photo and
video sharing. So
More kids have been turning to this one to connect to their
friends and express themselves. So if you think, Oh, well, my kid
doesn't have Instagram, he doesn't have Snapchat, he there's no real,
you know, medium for him to share her or him or her to share photos
and videos. Just you need to be monitoring their phones and see if
maybe they're they've caught, you know, this new app that's that's
popular among their demographic that parents are not really, you
know, they don't really know about, again, that's Ph. D. D,
then Kik, why is it popular?
Well, first, before I tell you about it, let me just ask General
another general question for services like WhatsApp and
iMessage. To work on our phones, our phone numbers required.
Yes, yes or no? Yes. So a lot of people or a lot of parents who
give their kids phones without numbers associated with them
falsely think that there's no way that their children could be text
messaging, because they don't have a phone number to do you know, to
download these apps that would work? Well. That's where something
like kik comes in, kik offers a platform for teens who do not have
phone numbers, to actually send text messages back and forth.
So again, look at your child's phone. And if just because you
don't see certain, you know, messaging apps, doesn't mean that
they're not doing it if they have these apps. And in many cases,
these are things that you know, kids are sharing with each other,
there is an entire, you know, a
force out there that is happily trying to teach children how to do
things behind our backs, they have found every which way, and I
actually remember reading a study not too long ago, there are 1000s,
not just like a few 1000s of apps that are actually they hide, they
mask, their masquerading app. So basically, they look like a
calculator, or they look like something totally innocent, that
you would never think was an app in the first place. But it's
actually a portal Altavilla. And these are developers, web
developers that are making these by the 1000s for children, so that
they can find backdoor channels to basically do all the stuff the
parents told them to do. So if we as parents don't know that these
things even exist. And we think, Oh, my child has an iPad, he just
uses it, or she just uses it for school and nothing else. But we
don't bother to go periodically and look at the content that they
have on their apps. And I don't mean just, we'll talk about this.
But you know, if you're gonna announce it, like, oh, eight
o'clock after dinner, I'm checking your phone, that's not very smart.
Because what's gonna happen, you know, that child could instantly
go, oh, my gosh, I gotta delete everything. So don't do that.
These have to be like, you know, I'm not announcing anything, give
me your phone, you know, you know, just I want it. And that's where
you and we'll talk about, like how to, you know, navigate those
conversations, because they are difficult to have in some cases.
But the point again, being that there are these apps that that are
out the biller, that's what their intent is to is to hide stuff from
us what we need to know. So this is one kick is one that kind of,
you know, again, parents need to know about, um, let's see, how
much time do we have before? Like, 10 minutes, right.
Okay.
No, don't.
Okay, anybody have any questions about any of this so far?
Okay, so I'm just going to tell you a little Oh, I'm sorry, Jeff.
Question. Sorry.
Controlled by data.
A lot of
data so
I think going to be comfortable.
I love it. Excellent advice that actually, please hold on to even
more ideas like that. Because at the end, we're going to actually
talk about different strategies that we can use. And I want
parents, especially those with teenagers who've been down this
road before and know it all, to please voice, what you've done and
what works for your family, because there are other families
who just don't know where to start, where to begin, how to have
these conversations. So just go ahead. And I want to hopefully
pick your brain at the end of the conversation to Are there any
other questions before I get into this quick story?
So I thought I saw another hand. Okay. So this is just a story that
happened. Maybe I think it was last year. But it's stuck with me
because it was so disturbing. I was on Instagram and I actually
had this is probably my least favorite of all social media apps.
Because for those of you who don't know, first of all, how many
people here have an Instagram account?
Okay, how many of you know or your kids might have an Instagram
account? Okay, so Instagram kind of presents itself pretty again
innocently in the idea that, hey, I'm just sharing pictures and I
get to control the way
Share it with. And so there seems to be this whole, like, there's a
lot of control in it, when in fact, if you're not familiar with
how the app works, there's a page or one of the features of the app
that I think is probably the most just horrible thing on the apps
that I've seen. Why because
it's called the Explore page. And what the Explore page is, it's,
you know, the way that they have their algorithms, they basically
are able to put a bunch of things on a screen, you know, you never
asked to see it's not at your discretion whatsoever, it's
actually content that friends or friends of friends, or whoever
you're connected to, on your accounts, might be interested in,
and somehow, because they are watching it, and they're viewing
it, it's now on your phone. So just think about that, like if
you're, you know, if you don't know someone that you know, a
friend, or maybe they're, you know, a friend of a friend that
you don't know, is into things that you don't want to be seeing,
you have no control over that, it'll just come up on your Explore
page. So think about that if your children are on Instagram, because
I had this scenario a few years ago, where I'm sorry, last year, a
few months ago, or a little more than a few months ago, but last
year, where I was on Instagram, and I saw this picture of what's
it he said it was a it was like a young teenage boy, it was he was a
model. And he came up in my feed. And I was like, Wait, I don't
recognize this person. Like, who is he? So I went to see his page.
And,
you know, his,
he looked at he appeared to be Muslim. So I was just like, Who is
this Muslim kid, like, you see a model.
I went to see, you know, the the top like, comments, this name
stuck out to me, and it was Muslim girl. And she, you know, she had a
clearly Muslim name. But I looked at the message that she left for
this model, he was probably a 1617 year old, heavier, you know, good
looking kid. But I just was like, oh my god, I was a biller, she
left a very graphic message for him about what she wanted to do to
him. And it was just horrible. And then I just started skimming. And
I realized that she probably she had some sort of an obsession with
him, because she had written on almost every single message of
this, I mean, on every single picture that this boy had posted.
And then when I clicked on her name, to see if I could see her,
because it just, you know, I was assuming she's got to be a young
teenager or some girl, I, it dawned on me that this is not just
a teenage girl, she was probably like 10 or 11 years old. But if
you had seen the words that she was using, I mean, very vile, very
just inappropriate comments. And I just couldn't believe it.
Instantly, I thought, this girl, it's May Allah guide her and
forgive her and protect her. But the point where the parents, you
know, if you're not aware of what your children are doing, and she's
not just, you know, I mean, she's posting things that other people
definitely were not posting, they were just remarking on how his
good looks. But she was getting very graphic. There's some problem
here. But this is just one story of I'm sure 1000s of instances
where, you know, kids, when we don't provide guidelines, and you
know, real clear boundaries, we give them too much leeway. And
this is where, you know, shaitan has a field day. And he, this is
what his intention is, he wants to destroy us at every opportunity.
And the younger, he can get us you're younger, it's even better
because it's like your whole lifetime. You have problems. I
mean, I know of, of people who've really struggled because of things
like this happening to them at a young age where they were exposed
to things they were not meant to see. And it's a life long
challenge and struggle, and I'm sure Dr. Rachel can give us more
perspective on how these things can really, really harm us in the
long run. So that's just again, one example.
Excuse me, Facebook, you know, it's another thing that again,
most people, like I said earlier, think oh, it's an adult platform.
Kids aren't on there. It's actually not true. There was an
article, I'm not sure how many of you read it. It was pretty kind of
floating around Facebook and other social media couple months ago
about the mother and UK. Did you guys read that one? Her 11 year
old daughter. This is again a really horrible story. You could
do a search for it. But her daughter she was she thought she
was again this mom thought she had a handle on social media. She her
daughter really wind and wind and wind her Facebook, a Facebook
account. She said okay, sure. She let her go on. And then next thing
you know, this horrible, horrific thing happened to her daughter
where basically, she
had all you know, friends from school on her account, but someone
friend requested her. And this person presented himself as a
young boy, teenage boy, same age, you know, 11 year old kid. She had
32 mutual friends with him. So she thought you know, just someone
that I must
No, maybe I know through school I don't you know, know someone who
knows, she accepted his friend request and he wanted to, you
know, talk to her online on the camera. And again, she's so young,
she, she just kind of had liberty. So she, she got on camera. And it
turns out
again, I'm sorry, there's a lot of small children here. And I can't
tell these stories of children are going to be in the room. So
parents, I please ask that you, you protect your children from
what we're sharing here. But she found out that this was actually a
man who was a much older man. And he got her on webcam, just so that
he could basically pleasure himself to her, and this
traumatized church, you know, panic, freaked out, and then hid
it from her mom. But what did he do? Let's look at, you know what
he did, which is something parents have to think about. He very
methodically befriended 32 of her friends, before he asked her. So
sometimes, if you think, you know, oh, there's all these connections
that we have mutually, can't be harmful, every person must be
vetted. If you're going to allow your children to have accounts,
you should know every single person on their account. And if
you don't know that, if they have a weird name, or a nickname, or
they have a picture of a cat, that's not good enough, you should
say, No, I need full transparency, if you're going to have these
accounts, and they need to know their, who they are, where they
live, what school they go to, but to kind of have this blind, you
know, or not really have these conversations with your children
in the first place, then you've set it not to blame the mother.
But just again, these things happen. And we have to take
lessons from them, that we have to protect our children. So we have
to have these conversations with them. That just because you get a
request from someone, even if you have mutual connections, whether
it's Instagram, Snapchat, whatever, if you would get our
parent who is allowing your kids to do these things. Remember the
story because he took away her innocence, and 11 years old, too.
And one of the horrible accounts or descriptions in the story that
the mother shared in the article was that all but it's just so
tragic. She's so innocent, she, she was scared to show herself on
the camera. So she was just holding up her teddy bear. So just
imagine you're holding this 11 year old, poor, innocent girls
thinking I'm talking to another kid my age, holding up her teddy
bear. And here's this older fella, you know, human devil, who's
basically on the other end, ready to take away all her innocence.
And you know, she's scarred for life. But again, as parents, our
job is to know that these things can happen. And to be vigilant,
and to have these very, very open conversations with our children,
and to have absolute boundaries. And again, we're gonna get to that
and shuttler in the follow up discussion. Any other questions? I
think we're going to stop soon. Yes, like one minute left. So any
questions before we stop? For?
Or comments?
Okay, shall us I think we'll go ahead and stop for prayer. And
then we'll come back and shut up, we'll get a chance to hear from
everybody, we're gonna go ahead and Shala and pick up where we
left off. And I promise you, I know, we're all here you have an
idea. She keeps telling me to keep going, but I'm going to try to go
as fast as I can, because I want to hear from her as well. And
inshallah we also want to have a discussion with you. So we do want
you do, you know, think about questions you have, or if you have
any anecdotes to share, those are really powerful. You know,
stories, always stick with people. So think of things that maybe you
can contribute to the conversation and shut off. Okay, can you?
Okay, I want to make sure I don't get these
Bismillah so, um, again, you know, we went over quite a few different
apps and talked about their purpose and some of the threats
that we you can experience on them. And we could do this for
every single media, you know, social media app out there, but we
just don't have the time to do that. The point that we're trying
to make here, though, is that we as parents must be vigilant about
these things. That's really a very big part of our role. As believers
the proposal, so the law has sort of set in a sound narration. All
of you are shepherds, and each of you is responsible for his or her
flock. And the Imam is a shepherd and he is responsible for those in
his care. A man is a shepherd in respect of his family and is
responsible for those in his care. The woman is a shepherd in respect
of her husband's house, her children, and is responsible for
those in her care. The servant is a shepherd in respect of his
masters property and is responsible for what is in his
care. All of you are shepherds, and each of you is responsible for
his or her flock. Now I personally know many people who avoid social
media like the plague they're like, you know, very proud. I'm
not on Facebook. I don't know you know about Instagram I don't know
about Snapchat, which is perfectly fine and martial arts etc.
You're on their own, I totally respect anybody who wants to stay
off these platforms because of, you know, for whatever reasons
they choose. However,
again, as parents, as educated as educators, and as shepherds
responsible for our flock, it is our duty, we have to be aware of
the dangers that are out there. So you don't need to create accounts
to be on Twitter to be active. But you should know how to navigate
through these platforms, you should know better than your
teenagers or your children, how to the ins and outs of Snapchat, you
should know that you should know better than your teenagers, the
ins and outs of Facebook and Twitter, whatever apps that they
are on, you should know them better. Why? Because if you don't
know them better, it's basically just like, you know, think of a
shepherd you know, my that's this hadith is one of my favorites,
because it's so such a perfect analogy to what we're supposed to
be doing. The shepherd, where does he stand? Or she stands in with
respects to her flock? Does? At the side? Or where else? I mean,
they're leading the flock, right? So there's a shepherd go behind?
isn't like go catch up to you are I don't care. I'm gonna open the
gates and you run wild. The shepherd? Does what walks ahead of
the flock. Always why? Why does the shepherd walk ahead of the
flock, the staff that the shepherd holes, there's many functions to
one to corral the slug. The other also to test the ground beneath,
right? A shepherd needs to know if his flock is going to enter what
some really crazy mud, you know, quicksand or something dangerous
out there, or there's trucks. But the point is, is the shepherd is
always ahead of the flock ahead of the game, preparing and looking
out for imminent threats and dangers. We don't send our very
innocent children, our beautiful beloved flock out into the wild,
you know, without any care and just expect them to come home
without being harmed. That's crazy. Nobody does that with your
own children, you learn just open the door and say go, go explore
the earth and come back when you're done. But for some reason,
the internet seems like it's okay. It's not a big deal. You know that
I trust them and emotional, it's good to trust and I what I don't
want anybody to do is take this information and create an
environment of suspicion, because suspicion is haram in Islam, we're
not leading with suspicion, we don't want to be these hovering,
you know, sort of, just like, you know, everybody's super spy, and
all of a sudden, more, it's like, coming out in the middle of the
night. And, you know, just doing crazy things to try to unearth
what your children are doing. That's not the culture that we
want to inculcate in our families. This is about transparency, but
knowledge information is knowledge and knowledge is power. So if you
don't have the information, you know, the knowledge of how to
navigate these conversations don't what's gonna happen, like so many
parents is they're gonna call most likely doctrine on yet or maybe
someone like me just kind of in between the mental health world or
in the Muslim community. And they're getting I've had this
happen to me phone calls, desperate phone calls for you
know, I have a situation emergency situation, because my child, you
know, did this or my child, you know, found this and it all
started with this too much leniency you know, giving too
much, because, you know, for for whatever reason, but the point is,
is, again, our role as parents is we have got to get over this idea
that I'm not interested in this stuff, because it just doesn't
appeal to me at all fashion. You know, I like lead. I love
handwriting, handwriting, my letters. Great. Take out the
typewriter. You know, if you want to chip away and send beautiful
letters to your family, that's wonderful. But it's you're so out
of touch with the world that our children have, unfortunately, you
know, this is just around them everywhere. We can't escape it. It
is everywhere. And if you really think about the future, this is
it. I mean, we're already things are becoming obsolete, newspapers,
magazines, books, books are becoming unfortunately obsolete.
How many people here have witnessed in our lifetime? The
closure of bookstores, right? Isn't that heartbreaking? Man, I
remember one of the things that I came through rolled through
Fremont, after I had moved away to Southern California is
heartbreaking, was borders, Barnes and Noble and all these bookstores
that I had so many amazing memories, shut down because people
aren't reading anymore. Everything's all my point is
digital world. Kids are this is the world they're inheriting. So
you can't afford to be ignorant and don't take that in the wrong
way. Either in the sense that you just don't know of these things.
You can't afford it anymore. Because you're It's trust me it's
happened to too many people. And it's a horrible situation to be in
as a parent to know that Oh, my son is now addicted to *
because I didn't. I wasn't thinking when I let him take his
iPad into the room and I
Thought he was working on his science project? Nope. You know,
where my daughter's got a boyfriend, who's, you know, from
XYZ country, and she wants nothing to do with STEM anymore. She now
wants to be with him. Because she was texting in the middle of the
night, because I didn't think to take her phone out of the room.
Why did she, Why do children need this in the middle of the night?
You know, we use these three, we hear their excuses. And we think
like, really, there's just think about it, you know, this is not
the only alarm Fajr alarm, I'm sure we've all used that excuse,
or it's my pleasure alarm. Maybe kids are using that with their
parents or, or, you know, I have, I don't know, it's like, for
whatever, you know, maybe to wake up for school, or whatever they're
using as an excuse. But the point is, is this is not the only thing
that we can use. So we have to, again, think about these things
and shut up. Now I'm
part of this, in addition to having the knowledge is also
thinking about what are the spiritual measures we're taking to
protect our children in our homes, one of the things that, you know,
and it's something we really should think about the world
outside of us is, in many ways, a battle zone. It's a spiritual
battle. So, and 100. And out, we come from a tradition, you know,
this is why the dollar is so powerful, you know, in terms of
that, within Islam, because Islam is truly a great blessing. We have
guys from, you know, 1400 years ago, that are more relevant now,
perhaps than any other time in terms of the evil around us. The
problem was set up in sound hadith is reminding us that we have to
seek refuge in Allah subhanaw taala, from every evil in
creation. And unfortunately, in our lifetime, the number of evils
has just grown and continues to grow and grow and grow. Because of
many, many, for many reasons, because of these things, that the
internet has sort of opened up to our societies. So are we taking
spiritual precautions to protect our children, for example, in many
of our cultures, I see my show a lot of people here, I know, some I
don't know, but I can presume that a lot of our cultures are, you
know, from from, you know, the Indo Pak funny Arab, you know,
cultures and what I know from these cultures is that we have a
lot of practices to safeguard infants, and in your tiny little
babies from NASA and our aim and evil, but then for some reason,
that sort of just starts to just stop. And we don't really think
about the importance of same dogs on our older children, you know,
if you have little tiny kids, or I mean, infants and children, and
you're, you know, doing all these dogs reading, you know, protective
dogs over them hanging, you know, repairs on them, or, you know,
people just do all sorts of different things. I mean, I had, I
knew a friend who's this mother, because Michelle was she born very
beautiful children, even her sons looked very beautiful. They have
like, you know, thick eyelashes, and they looked almost like girls,
they just had very, very beautiful features. She would purposely
dress them as girls, because they weren't boys, but they were just
so extraordinarily beautiful for boys, I guess, that she didn't
want people to look and say, Wow, that's a, you know, he's a boy,
oh, my gosh, so she would just dress her sons up in dresses, you
know, and then I know many of them, this eat this equal
triangle, this is popular, where people will mark, you know,
infants with like, black marks, you know, you know, you know,
people who do that, right. They'll take like, Kahan. And then like,
kind of down the road. We're not here or there make it look like a
hairy mole all because it's like, oh, I don't want any I don't want
in addition to doing God's but we take the steps for infants, but we
don't think your teenage children that they don't need protection
from evil. You know, there's dogs out there so we have to say the
dogs and, and you know, there's martial law words which are
Whitney's these are. These are, you know, prayers that are from
the Sunnah, that we should all be implementing the word abilities
that alter the shadow, there's other guys as well that you can
get online, there's no excuse anymore. And what you just have to
do is start habituating yourself and your family to making sure
fudges method, at least for general, you know, started your
day, but it's preferred to do it twice a day, to get in the habit
of saying Oh, rather than your children at night before they
sleep, you know, we tuck our little ones in again, but you
know, teenagers, we don't think to tuck them in, okay, fine, it might
be awkward to tuck in a teenager. But if your intention isn't
necessarily to read Nursery Rhymes for them, but to just stand at
their doorway, or close to their bed and just to do protective
doors. These are measures that as parents, we're following, you
know, the guidance of our beloved prophet who didn't put a timeline
on this stuff. It's just read off for years. I mean, he didn't know
himself. He read the, you know, and he blew into his hands and
this was every single night. So for our most precious, prized
possessions or beloved children, we don't think to do this and then
we wonder when we send them into this world or out of another
There's evil coming at them from every single direction imaginable.
Literally even you know, above them hovering them, there's things
going on that we don't think that we, you know that it's okay to do,
we just expect them to do it on their own. These are things that
we have to, you know, again, create these cultures in our
families.
So, I have more, but I'm just gonna now talk about just a few
things about social, we're gonna bring it back to social media,
because I don't want you to leave this conversation thinking it's
all bad, nothing is all bad, right? There's a lot of good that
social media has as well. And it's important to highlight that
because what I know what I don't want, is there to be this
overreaction to some of the things presented here, and people kind of
get a little maybe paranoid and afraid, you know, there's a
balance that we're trying to seek here. And the responsibility, like
I had been saying, really falls on our shoulders. But um, you know,
some of the benefits, and I'll just list a few here is that
through the internet, through social media, kids, teenagers in
particular, can become more informed about current affairs and
the world around them. With social media, teens can easily find out
what's going on in their neighborhood, school state
country, you know, and it's an important way to equip themselves
with with adequate knowledge of current affairs. So I mean, I know
you know, there's a lot of, especially Facebook, a lot of
people, I don't know, the exact statistic, but more and more
people now are getting their news from Facebook, right? How many
people here get their news from Facebook, right? Who goes to like,
you know, CNN anymore, or maybe you might go later in the evening,
but usually, first morning thing is, like, let's see what the what
was happening in the world on Facebook. And that's sort of our
window to what's going on. So this is another opportunity where yes,
social media can do the same for teams, it's easier to study and
carry out research work. So it is a legitimate way to for kids to to
get together. Like if you're on a group project. Sure, you know, if
there's a way to connect using Google Plus, or you know, Hangouts
or whatever, it's, it's a good thing. So we don't want to, you
know, just paint it all with one negative brush, look at the
positives, allow your children to know that you are also have a
balanced perspective of things and you're not a hypocrite, if you're
on, you know, social media apps, you can't, you know, point the
finger and say, No, it's bad, you have to teach them, the good and
the bad. It can boost self esteem, social media provides a place
where teens can freely express themselves, sometimes in classroom
settings or in settings with their peers, they might not feel
comfortable talking openly and this is perfectly normal, you
know, sort of public speaking is the number one fear that most
people have. Teenagers are definitely part of that. So to
speak up always about things that are happening, important causes,
or maybe things in the class might be hard, but maybe on, you know,
another platform where their class is has access to it, they kind of
can find their voice and speak to things, these are benefits of
social media. This is something we don't think about, but it's
actually pretty important, given the fact that you know, there are
numbers rising in some of these groups, but it can help teens,
particularly those with disabilities, learning, you know,
disabilities, but also physical disabilities, with staying
socially connected to their peers. Because if everything's happening
at the local bookstore, or the coffee shop, or somewhere
physically, and I can't be there, but I can join it, I can Skype
into a conversation, I can, this is a great benefit of social
media, because I'm not, you know, the outcasts that can't do
anything. So it does come to that provide that outlet for our
brothers and sisters who are not always able to attend these things
physically, it can assist obviously, in getting jobs and
networking. So for college applications for jobs, there's
so many opportunities on social media, to connect with other
people to network. So that's another benefit. It helps teams
keep up to date with current technology,
things are always changing. So again, this is one way where kids
can always stay in the loop. And then from the standard
perspective, social media gives many teens now especially more
than maybe ever before access to scholars that they don't normally
have, right? Does anyone know I mean, I don't know I don't have
statistics, but currently, who do you think is probably the most
popular sort of, you know, that IE scholar in the American Muslim or
Western Western world,
right? You guys know,
Marshall, may Allah reward him he has over a million followers,
right? Most of his access though, is our noise. So if you cut your
kids off from everything, then you know this is another problem is
that this is a great you know, scholar of our time, mashallah
he's done so much good for our community and especially for
engaging the youth to have someone like him, many other you know,
scholars and activists also
You are connecting with youth, especially during like, you sort
of, you know, youth driven, I guess you could say talks through
Snapchat through, you know, different. What is the one
Periscope, right? There's all these different mediums now that
the scholars can engage with the kids. And, you know, it's not
always easy martial law here, may Allah bless this community,
because you have the youth coming in and engaging, but there are
communities where youth really are very much involved. But this does
give them that platform, obviously, to stay connected with
family and friends abroad, this is another really great way, if you
want to teach your kids how to use social media, with with good
intentions, then please be mindful of this one, I'm also speaking to
myself directly, I have relatives that are abroad. And you know,
sometimes, you know, because of time differences or whatever, it's
not always easy to connect. But we do have to be mindful of, of
teaching our children the importance of connecting with
family. And we're not, you know, it's not as easy maybe for some
people to travel, to see family, but what a great blessing that we
can now Skype in real time, or, you know, use whatsapp or
whatever, where you're not even paying international calls
anymore. So last week, I think it was I called my uncle from my mom.
And I was just shocked. Because, you know, I didn't know this, I
guess it's a new feature on WhatsApp. But that, you know, he
understood that we were able to have a total live conversation
with no phone cards, no, you know, charge nothing, it was just a free
conversation. I was like, Wow, that's great. So these are
wonderful things. But this is something you have to be mindful
of like, okay, if I'm going to allow you to have WhatsApp or
allow you to have these things, and you're also going to use it in
a way that's meaningful, in a way that preserves our traditions in a
way that's important and reflects our values as a family. So when I
tell you to call, not EG, or dot EEG, or Uncle G or on teaching
your whoever gee, you know, whoever in back home, that they
don't, you know, turn away, you know, but then they're quick to
text their friends, this is not, this is not a balanced view, you
have to say, if you're going to use it for fun and for connecting
with your friends, you're also going to use it to stay connected
with family. So these are, again, ways that parents can inculcate a
balance when it comes to social media and having a healthy use of
it. And then this is my this is one of my favorite ones. Because I
really think as parents, especially in show, I have the
attention of my kids, that if they're when they're at the
appropriate age for them to use social media, that they're going
to use it to kick start campaigns, and, you know, do it for really
important charitable causes. Mashallah. I know personally, I
think brother Omar is here and Zora is here. But when I do the
stock ads, I just called when I gave this talk and I started the
IC, I actually mentioned them as well, but mashallah their son
Ilyas in December, right end of December, through Facebook and
through social media was able to raise $12,000. This is a teenage
boy, he's 1617 680 16, what's your 16 year old boy $12,000 through
social media to go in to help the children's here and he didn't just
raise the money, but he are actually in martial law took his
intention even further. And he him and his mother and Marshall, a few
other friends traveled to Turkey and they helped the Syrian
refugees. This what a great way to use social media in a positive
way. These are ideas that we as parents have to really, you know,
first of all, I mean, appreciate 100 Other this happening, but also
think, How can I do this in my family? How can I take these ideas
that other people are doing, even if it's a small effort, but it
does reach out to your own family, your own networks, if you can get
them to use social media to do these things, this is using
something like this that we've been talking about. You know, it
is really good light instead of just assuming it's all bad and
dark, which it's not. But um, again,
Michelle, I wanted to also just leave with one other thing, and
then I'm going to turn it over. I'm sorry, I kind of went longer
than I wanted to. But one thing that a resource moving, this is
just a takeaway for you, a resource for parents, especially
if your kids are in public school, I really, really advise you to
follow this resource. It's called Careful parents.com On this
website, it's wonderful male, I don't know who put it together,
but I love it because what it does is it puts together and it's
updated frequently, what the latest trends are throughout
public schools or throughout, you know, whatever social media
whatever's happening that teens and young impressionable kids are,
you know, caught up in the latest trends or latest little things
that they do. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that teens are doing
that we as adults are so unaware of, but this website has their you
ear to the ground. They know what teens are doing. And then they
provide the content for parents to know. For example, one thing that
I learned when I went to the website, I had no idea. There was
a trend recently that you took pictures, you basically put your
phone, it's so awkward, but you've teased, we're doing this, taking
pictures between you put your putting the phone between your
knees, and then taking pictures of them. I didn't know it was a
trend. But apparently, it was something very popular. And it was
sweeping across into different communities. But kids here, this
is what they do, they hear about something, and it's like, Oh, I'm
gonna do that, or, you know, one of their favorite celebrities does
something. And next thing, you know, it's caught fire, and
everybody's doing it. So these are the types of things that this
website will kind of give you, again, information about just so
that you can be aware, because all of it, I know, there's things that
have happened to children because of falling prey to not peer to
peer pressure, but also just wanting to be a part of the group,
you know, like, not necessarily someone's forcing them, but kind
of picking up on trends and wanting to be cool, that cool
factor that everybody's seeking. And they do these things that
compromise their safety, their reputations, but if we don't know
about them ahead of time, then we might think, oh, it's innocent,
it's no big deal. But again, this website will will kind of keep you
in the loop about that. And so, with that said, I am going to turn
it over to Dr. Vanya and Shama and then we'll I think do q&a and talk
after that Bismillah.
Was school motto say that
he was somebody who said imaginary. Thank you so much, Mr.
Hosein, for all this informative information, I hope but if you
feel that you've gained quite a bit of knowledge, listening to SR,
OSI speak different apps or different social media platforms
and outlets that perhaps you use but didn't know the extent of what
they really had in them in terms of not just the good that you use
them for Inshallah, but also the detriments and perhaps other
things and other names that you're not actually familiar with. So my
talk, inshallah is going to just kind of I'm going to do a
conclusion statement for the discussion sisters on the side
here. So we have time for your questions. Inshallah, I'm going to
recap on some percentages that you said earlier, and then share some
thoughts in terms of the effect, and the consequence this might
have on our children going forward and Shalva. In my point of view, I
really feel that social media is one of those things that isn't
going to go away, as much as you maybe duck your head and say, I'm
not going to have a Facebook account, I'm not going to download
such and such, I'm not interested in such thing.
It's to me, it's kind of like cars. Once they were created, they
didn't go away. They only kind of progressed and progressed and
progressed. And one day they'll be flying. You know what the reality
is, once it's created, it's there to stay. Which means that our
children, just like they're going to learn to drive are going to use
social media regardless. And as time goes on, our children and
great grandchildren and so on, are going to have to acclimate, and we
ourselves are going to have to acclimate to this. And I say this,
because the majority of people in this room, social media was not a
priority for you and something you grew up with. You just simply
didn't grow up with it. In fact, many of you in this room, many of
us in this room did not grow up with even knowing how to type
without looking true. Yes, people do it, they still offer classes in
high school, including school of how to type without looking for
those of us who are in this room. True. True. Now, what our children
do is they don't even look at and you are kind of going like, you
know, trying to take something. So the reality is it's only going to
go forward. So us not really paying attention to it or hoping
that it's going to just go away isn't realistic enough. So then
what do you do? Part of it is less than zero. So I would say about
the kind of understanding even if you don't use it, but knowing
what's what's, what's it all about, and knowing details about
it.
The percentage that you said earlier, and I'm going to actually
say that the newest study that's come out on the age group of 7018.
And how many of you have children in this age group?
I think just about everybody in this room considering that we have
programs around how many of your children are in that age group,
seven to 18. Doing homework, doing a homework assignment that
required them to go online. Yeah. Which again, is the majority of
people in this room. The percentage of children seven to
18, who saw * while doing homework, literally just
searching for an innocent homework assignment. They typed in,
whatever it was, they were
All dinosaurs, whatever type in something that percentage is 70%.
That's your children.
That's our children. The reason I say that is this kind of shock and
awe factor. But the reality of what's there, you know, this too,
as you're searching something, something totally innocent, you're
looking for something, the sidebar is what pops up something that you
have to go like this to write and try to cover. Now, you may have
adult, inshallah instinct and strength to do that, but the child
does what, let's that clicks, without one click leads to soft
chords that very quickly leads to heartburn. And that's all there is
to it. Done that split second. So now that we're all kind of
terrified, or like, what do I do? What do I do? There's a couple of
really common sense things to do. But sometimes we don't fully take
into account. Yes, they may need to look something up online for
their homework assignment. But there's also something in the
setting that says, block out all pictures. That's a very simple
thing to do. Right. And then when you need the picture, you just
turn on what it is you can manage the settings for yourself online.
How many of us have actually done that with our phones and our
laptops and our computers and desktops, etc? Right? These are
kind of the simple things to do a child love to think about the site
that you're mentioning, hopes, kind of give some of this
feedback, and a child will have a discussion about what some of you
have done to give tips to each other on what to do. But the
reason I say that is because a lot of people don't realize here's the
internet. And they say, well, that's bad stuff that you're
referring to Dr. Ranjana sister who said those bad things you're
referring to, it's far off, it's not so much. It's not a big deal.
80% Here's the internet. It's just say 80% of what's beyond here is
*.
And if you don't know about number, you should. And you
basically why would I need to even know that it's important to know
that what you access your your Gmail account, a couple of
websites, you kind of get some things off of Amazon. And maybe
you check this or not a couple of sites online. And that's really
all you do online. But the reality of what's it beyond that? What's
beyond, it'll be here 80% of the internet is *. So that's
important to say that when something clicks and clicks and
clicks, it goes, it's very quick, that it leads to something not
just haram, not just one of those things like when you want you to
move in ego, right, but rather, so intensely haram, and so intensely
problematic, that it can scar your mind for life. And I imagine
children, and then we worry about the addictive. And I'm going to
speak about addiction in just a minute here. Because addiction is
not just drugs, right? Addiction is anything and everything you can
get addicted to and your mind kind of has a pleasure that comes from
it. Because it's pleasurable, it keeps on happening. And it just
goes up and up and up and up just like drugs would, right? It ramps
up and you kind of get stuck and you don't know how to get out of
that cycle. So when we say 80% of internet is *, and over
70% of our children just doing a basic homework assignment, I've
seen *, but then once, then we really have that then
what? And here's where I remember one of my spiritual teachers say,
and at the point at this point in time and that era that that
stitcher was speaking, it wasn't about social media, it was rather
about just movies, right? Watching kind of a movie and innocent
family movie. And it could be literally the one haram scene in
that movie, a one scene, right? If you're not, you didn't realize it
was coming. It just sort of came and you saw it
is the one scene that after you leave that movie, your mind keeps
playing over and over. Right? Yes or no, you just keep saying that.
I don't think even if you don't mean to over and over again. And
that is the shuffling right? That's what she told me likes to
do. Right? keep on increasing in the hug. So imagine then the
detriment of children seeing things that are way beyond
anything they should ever should ever see. Right?
So the spiritual imprint that these things have on our children,
I think is incredibly intense. And we know that that for adults, let
alone children, even for matters of, you know, intimacy, and so on
seeing these kind of things completely warp your sense of an
understanding of what intimacy is all about and what it means. Which
is why for example, we need to have things like counseling
centers, because the majority of people that seek out this kind of
help and care have issues, all different kinds of issues, but
within the domain of intimacy, often there's something there that
has to do with the Haram being viewed and the misunderstanding or
the warped understanding of intimacy between husband and wife.
So here we are back. So we'll go from the adult discussion Dr.
Children are referred to in discussing and having this
the real results of what happens when children get addicted. Right.
So I say this and we kind of all laugh about it a little bit, you
know
I've been noticing the last hour and a half have had this lecture.
The majority of you have out have looked at your phone at some point
or another.
Just scanning the room, the majority of you have picked up
your phone and did something or looked at something.
It's only been an hour and a half. Your intention for coming tonight
is a good intention. I'm going to listen to a dumpster Holika and
but it listen to knowledge I'm going to benefit inshallah to
Allah.
You couldn't get rid of your phone.
I'm not saying this to chest size or shape. Right? My phone is
sitting right next to me too. However, the issue is, I'm just
pointing out how addicted we are to this thing. Truly, truly. So
when Posada asked the question or set the question earlier, how many
hours do you think children are accessing social media? If they
are awake? Roughly 16 hours of the day?
And she gave the answer that 11 point something percent of hours
love and and a half hours a day? Great 76% 11 and a half hours of
the day your children access social media? How many of you said
not my child?
The one? Yeah. Yeah, many of you are thinking in your mind that my
child, let me tell you something. And this, this, this group that's
over here, the young girls that are here that Rama does Holocaust
for? So I've talked with them. And then I've done this talk and ask
these questions all across the nation, I kind of go out and do
different talks in different places around the country with
some communities. Just recently, just last week, I was in Ohio
doing this talk. And in other places throughout the country. And
I have this talk on social media and youth and fashion and body
image and all kinds of other things. We usually talk to the
girls about this. But But it's interesting, because the question
I always posed to them, I say, close your eyes, I have them all
close their eyes, and say put up your fingers of how many hours a
day you are on social media.
Muslim kids, your kids, that's
a first they just kind of like Charlie put like a couple of
fingers up. And then I say, look, I mean everything. I mean, whether
you're typing something for your work, for your homework, whether
you are looking at apps on the phone, whether you're watching
something, YouTube, etc. Just think of everything and anything
called social media. And keep your eyes closed, because I don't want
them to influence each other peer pressure is very common in this
age group, right to just the fake thing on their own. How many hours
a day, a couple of fingers that go up? After I asked the second
question, this is what I ended up getting with their eyes closed, I
get
almost always
that they are averaging something like 15 hours out there 16 hours a
day away
many of your own children.
The reason I say that is so that it's clear in our minds how real
this is. This is not like, Oh, oops, one time they saw something
cut on. Now the likelihood this is going to happen on a daily basis
is very high. So this, even the recommendation of why do they even
take this at home, I mean, in their room at night with them,
right? But the reality is, even through the day, even if you are
very strict about the number of hours, they're able to watch and
what's on here and sister earlier mentioned how much data you allow
them and you check on them and all the rest of it. The reality is
just like adults, they're attached to this thing once you give it to
them. Once you've made the decision to give them access,
they're attached. Now I'm going to talk about the detrimental impacts
of that attack that attachment as being from the field of mental
health. Just what are what are the what are we seeing as
professionals of children coming through. And honestly, a lot of
this isn't just children, it's also adults. So think about it for
yourselves, but also think about it in terms of in relation to
children. So this idea of what we're finding often is an increase
in loneliness and depression.
The reason for it is so many people have built around them in
virtual reality.
A virtual world and virtual friends, almost like a bubble, a
safe haven that they go to. And they have these virtual friends
that they've never met in real life.
And the thieves when you ask them who are your friends, these are
their nearest and dearest friends because they tell everything to
when they send pictures to when they talk to when they have they
feel they have very meaningful relationships with these virtual
people. And we talked about the story you gave about the very
scary person who was acting like they were a child, but they're
actually a child predator. Right. But the increase of loneliness and
depression in the advent of social media amongst youth has
skyrocketed. So there's definitely a correlation between the two
things that are you can become more lonely or depressed with this
access to social media and
Studies have shown also that it fuels anxiety.
There are, there's a study a very interesting study that says that
this is about adults, but it says that adults who have their phones
out next to them in work. So there you are in your desk, your
cubicle, your workplace, etc, and you have your phone out next to
you, you have more likely to develop anxiety than someone who
puts their phone away when they go to work.
The reason being that you are what what's it doing? It's pinging,
it's beeping, it's vibrating things are happening and keep on
checking, you keep on checking this anxiety that comes with it,
it actually there's a correlation between people that have their
phone out at work, or have their phone constantly next to them or
with them all the time. And the levels of anxiety that are
increasing in our society in general. And Muslims are not
immune to this at all. So the heavier the phone user, the
heavier experience, anxiety experienced increase of stress. So
even our children are feeling more stressed out. And a lot of it has
to do with the regular peer pressure that happens with tweens
and teens. Like think about middle school and high school, the
regular peer pressure of in person, not amplify that. But all
these virtual friends and people that they have and all the extra
pressure that comes from so even more peer pressure, even more
stress, essentially what's coming with being having these access
having this access.
Attention Deficit Disorder, people always ask this question, is there
a correlation between ADHD and and having social media usage? Now,
while the medical field has not established a definite
causation, they have definitely, at least over 50 Studies have
shown a correlation between social causation means one plus one
equals two, where correlation is there correlate a correlated to
each other, over 50. Studies have shown that ADHD that heavy in
social media usage in young people has led to is correlated with
ADHD. And think about it, it makes sense, right? That hyperactivity,
the irritability, the the the hyper focus on things you're
interested in, because you can say, Well, my kid when they play
video games, or they're playing one of these games on here, or
whatever, they're so hyper focused, that's actually a symptom
of ADHD, because they're so hyper focused on something they like,
but you ask them to go like put their socks on, and it takes them
like 15 minutes to do the 45 minutes, right with like wandering
through, and you telling them repetitively until they finally
actually get their song sign. Now, some of that is, maybe they're a
little bit rebellious, but part of it is their lack of being able to
concentrate properly. So there what's happening, you have a
constant stream of messages, and a constant stream of information
coming out, you write your Facebook page that keeps on it's
just never ending, right. So what happens, you're just you have your
brain is essentially overwhelmed, and it's not able to concentrate
properly. This is both adults and children, the correlation between
the two things. So you know, really, we have to think about
what this means. In general, what else the ability to
diminished concentration and creative thinking.
Because if you are plugged in all the time, your thoughts are
essentially what everybody else is thinking of everyone else is
talking about. So think about youth here, think about young
people, right? Whatever celebrity whatever thing is happening and
they're like, like, like, like like right, and not really taking
time to think for themselves. Very, very few very, like it's
very, not often anymore, that people have the time to just sit
still and have deep thinking you had an argument in our tradition,
we put a lot of emphasis on the idea of the kid on the idea the
sisters who have been in the sisters HELOC every Friday know
right our stuffs of improving yourself and seven steps of being
a highly effective aseema. Right. One of the seven steps is what I
love, right the idea of being in a sacred space with no distraction
and doing an in connecting with a loss of power to either and having
and we talked about the woman's halwa right the woman's got to cap
right. We often it's usually referred to as the men and I will
go and belabor that point because men do their autograph here but
according to the 100 female type A woman can do their active time at
home which is a beautiful thing and idea of having the sacred
space where you sit and do deep thinking and reflecting and we
talk about retreat reflect and remember him often for those that
are in the holiday or are familiar with this terminology right then
retreating the reflecting and remembering the last part that
often you can't do and so I don't know if I mentioned this in the
Holika But this can't go into with you into the Arctic half sisters
key to leave this out of your abs except species. You know that line
where you stand before any make your attention to say no way to
add to capital had them
STD read before you walk in this, this over here can't go into your
message it can get to take that.
You read it, you know what people talk about, you know SubhanAllah.
And in Holika, because you're saying you like reading my mind
put on our daily put on the radio on this. But you know what I have
to say people have gotten so used to read and put on on here that
they've forgotten how to hold the actuals. There is something very,
very blessed about holding the actual mishap in the pages of the
mishap. Do you know what I mean? And I really recommend that in
your head was space you have an actual must have with you and
Shalva. But back to what we were saying this idea where you were
sitting still and thinking deeply about matters, reflecting deeply
on the blessings Allah have given has given you who he is supposed
to Allah, what you have in your life and what you need. And the
role of people in your life, all these things we've discussed in
Holika, right? People have lost the ability to sit still.
And as a result, in the last couple of hours, we've been
together, many of you have taken out your phones, right, we've lost
the ability to sit still. Now imagine our children who don't
even have and remember, we grew up in an era when this didn't exist.
So we've learned how to do some of this, at least we've had a taste
of some of this right? Even if we've changed now. But our
children have never had this, they've only seen that they were
born into this, right. So now, how do we teach them creative and deep
thinking,
unless you unemployed, in our summer camps. And actually what we
what we actually do, if the girls come in with their phones and
things, we go out of the basket, we collect all the phones, we give
it back to them in the end. And if their parents are texting or
calling, we say call to start off another camp coordinator, right?
Because we want the girls to be completely media free to really
think about and engage fully in what they're doing. But we
literally have to collect these things from them. SubhanAllah. And
I think the same needs to happen at home. Because really,
you know, if you are constantly connected, it's it's there's not
going to be that deep thinking, then there's also the issue of
lack of detrimental sleep.
So many of you have, as adults have this happening too. But your
children are experiencing this too. They're constantly being
stimulated, right the eye and the mind constantly being stimulated,
literally is affecting our the sleep of our children and
ourselves as adults to excessive smartphone usage. And laptop usage
can actually affect your sleep. So, you know, just when you don't
have good sleep, it affects your overall mental health and well
being. So think about these things too, as well. Then the part here,
one of the last one of these last points that I really want to make,
it's, you know, self absorption.
We joke about the selfie generation, right? That they're
always like taking selfies of themselves, and we say the selfie
generation, but you know what, I really truly worry about the
spiritual state of our children.
Because the studies have started to show that this generation, not
only do they lack of social skills, because they don't know
how to interact with other people, they're interacting with others
through the phone. I mean, literally, you walk into a room.
And every single person, every single one of them has their head
like this. And sometimes we're actually talking to each other,
but through the
honestly go to restaurants and look at families. Every single one
of them is not a thing, even though they're supposed to be
eating dinner together at a restaurant, they're all which
sometimes talking to each other through here without actually
talking directly. So not only the social skills, but this self
absorption, narcissism, right, that comes self absorbed
completely. The other one I was traveling other week, we were
somewhere. And I sat somewhere for a while just waiting for some
people. And we're sitting in front of a place where people come like
it's a, you know, a special landmark place where people take
pictures. And there was a lot of young people that were coming
through and taking their selfies, right. But I sat there for over an
hour, just doing my own thing. But I kept looking at every single
group of people. And these are people that didn't see each other,
they're just a group of youth who come in teens will come in, take
some pictures of themselves, and go, and the next group will come
in and do the same thing. But you know, it was so interesting to me.
But every single group of youth that came in
not only did they do a selfie, but they all did the duckface
every single one of them, and I thought Subhanallah it's like they
literally don't know how to take a picture of themselves unless they
do that awful duckface you know, talking about the duck face,
the lips. And I was like they didn't even communicate to each
other or talk to each other. They don't even know each other right?
They don't even see each other but every group would come in and I
said Subhan Allah so self absorbed that they don't even know how to
also stuck and it's like they're all robots stuck in the same
routine. So
and then stopping endlessly and posting endlessly pictures, one of
those questions
As I ask our youth, when I do my talk with them, is how many of you
close your eyes and tell me raise your hand, how many of you have
altered your picture on social media to look different than you
actually look, whether it's through a filter, or you added
something to it, or change some blemishes, or changed your eye
color or whatever, right, did something to alter every single
kid's hand, almost every single hand goes up,
altering pictures of themselves to do whatever in their mind, which
is kind of a little bit skewed. Sometimes when I talk about body
image, right, of what is beautiful. And so all of this is
really affecting our kids.
You know, this unhealthy self centeredness, and really
distancing themselves from real life relationships. So I think all
of this, kind of reflect on the effect of it. But again, like we
said, at the very beginning, it's not like it's going away. It's not
like, the point of today is that you go home and tell your kids,
okay, give me your phone, give me you're not gonna give me a bit of
help, I'm gonna throw them away. That's not the point. Because the
reality is, that's not, that's not realistic. And that's not going to
really actually help anything. But what is going to help is that once
it's here to know how to manage it, just like once cars were
created, you'll learn how to drive safely, right? It's the same idea
here learning how to drive this situation safely, in sha Allah.
And so, you know, I just want to
warn you of some of these things, and especially the literature and
the research that's out there. And for some of you, maybe you have
listened to this talk, and you said to yourself, Okay, Inshallah,
I need to take some of these pointers away and go home and
really work on some of this with my kids. Some of you might have
heard this talk and realized, wow, maybe myself, or my kid has, it's
a little excessive, maybe it's a little much, maybe actually need
some help. Maybe they actually had a true addiction. Now, this
addiction, internet addiction is a real thing. I want you to know
that in psychiatry books, right? In terms of diagnosis, they have
such things called gaming addiction, right? Where people are
addicted to the internet to our excuse me to video games, this is
a real addiction, right? There is no internet addiction. There is
such a thing as *, addiction, these things are real
addictions, right? But if you're finding yourself or your children
are stuck in this moment, or they need some extra help and
counseling, well, right across the table here as our as our huddle
center table, right. We have counselors who are able to help
with things like addictions, and really all things related to our
mental well being and our family's well being. So I do actually
encourage you to seek out those services. And I will put that plug
in for the huddle center because I help you know, direct the Center,
but also because I really feel our community needs to come to a point
in understanding that this is not going to go away. And this is an
if it's a bear, it's not something you stick your head in the sand
and ignore, but rather you seek help for Inshallah, to honor and
for those who don't feel that this is actually their case or come to
them. They're not at that point, right then to take the
preventative measures from getting to that point. So maybe whether
it's like parenting counseling or help on parenting or how to deal
with children, especially as they get into the tweens and teens age,
that's also something that can you can see control a professional
work with our Muslim therapist and Charlotte's autumn. So I want to
kind of emphasize the hope is there. The resources, whether
online, the website you mentioned, or whether in person with
therapists, but I do actually really recommend that you seek out
help if you've heard all everything tonight and you felt
while I think I need some extra assistance here, assistance is
available and shows on so I don't want you to leave kind of feeling.
I don't know what to do. And I'm not sure where to go right there
is actually helpful for this. I think our role tonight is really
showing some of the detriments of where when this is unchecked. And
things are just sort of handed to our young people, the detriments
that can happen to that and we're trying to elucidate that for you
and make it very clear in Charlotte to Allah. So with that,
I wanted to take some time for our q&a section. And we're going to
have I think, both written and also questions that are asked that
you can just ask directly, because we want to have a discussion about
this topic. But before we do that, I'd just like to say one more
thing very quickly. Insha Allah and again, putting in that plug
for the federal center. I do want to make you aware that on next
Sunday, the 30th is the banquet, in which I hope all of you will
come and show up and it's in Dublin and the sisters that are in
the back right you can purchase their tickets directly from the
Michel Ensenada. So please do support an institution that is
helping address some of the needs of our community in
Charlottesville.
With that, we'll take some questions
sit alongside
mental health therapists at North Memorial High School. And I just
want to encourage parents to continue to have dialogue with
your children. I used to do one on one therapy with my students. And
one of the common things that I see amongst the students is hiding
things from the parents. And so as I'm speaking with my my students,
a lot of issues come up, depression, anxiety, anger, and
all these things.
Most of them come around to me. And so what I'm seeing is the
parents not having this dialogue with the children, what they're
seeing on social media, what they're accessing on social media,
I have a student that I've worked with, let's disable ideation,
suicidal thoughts. Very, very severe,
long time, and it took them months to come up to tell me that he was
searching this website that is transparent. It's called the dark
web. And there's very, very bad things on this website. And so he
wins to learn that was on this website goes access through a
friend, that has to turn on a friend. And it's traumatized, to
the point where he wanted to kill himself.
Well, my obligation was to contact parents, of course, and parents
had going
public with their job, and
I had to go to law enforcement because of the
action.
So this is a police investigation. So long story short, for all the
parents out there.
I
work
I talk to my parents about having a contract and agreement.
Just like you would sign up for an app, you have to have an
agreement, you have to agree to certain conditions to
make your children have this ground with you. If you're going
to use my phone that I purchased with using the phone, but you're
going to talk to me about what you're downloading, what you're
doing, what apps you have on your phone. And if you're not familiar
with the apps, explain to me what this
app is actually doing. Or the Snapchat.
And then, you know, it takes five to 10 minutes, the child can show
you what it does, you're gonna have that interaction, that
transparent. Transparency.
So it's very important for
me, sister, thank you, brother. I mean, I just wanted to comment
quickly on what you said, Thank you so much for your for your
comments. On the idea of discussing with our children. And
the idea of transparency, I just want to add one more thought to
this idea
that we didn't say earlier. Like we've said, this isn't going to go
away anytime soon. But I think what's really important is that
even in the age of social media, that you still have a connection
with your children, this very deep connection, and transparency, you
spoke about being friends, like not, not letting being friends
with your children come at a cost of not knowing what it is that
they're up to. Right, because you're trying to be hip and cool
and all the rest of it. While we do encourage that and really being
friends with your children, especially like a hadith talks
about the thing of it says to in the later years, but at the same
time to really have that deep should never come across as having
that deep connection with to continue. And I want to say the
thing about the suicide scene seeing seeing like murders online.
Right, and the harm of seeing * online. But then
there's also a third harm. I don't think we mentioned it so far in
our talk right now. But one of the things are really worried like
intensely, and I think those of you have heard me speak before
that I'd say that the ill the ill of our current era and time
is atheism. Right? I always talk about how the like our youth are
truly, truly grappling with this idea of leaving Islam and leaving
the idea that there is a God and really completely moving
themselves away from that. A lot of these thoughts are coming
through social media, a lot of these thoughts are coming through
forums online. A lot of these ideas, dark ideas, and concepts
are coming through stuff that they're accessing online. So think
about how to is they're kind of alone. What is it they're reading,
just like we would say, when people were using books, and we
would say for parents read through your child's book, right? That's
in the time where like, all you were really screening for was bad
words and people kissing, right? You're screening for really like
deep, deep, dark, dark ideas, including the idea of rooting out
their faith. So for children and youth that we've talked with, who
don't believe actually, that I've taught that are really thinking
through it
and believe they're no longer Muslim, and they're atheist. And
they're very scared to tell their parents these things, but are
willing to talk to a counselor maybe. And that's how we know what
these things are through the use of groups. It's amazing when you
ask them, Where did you get these ideas? Or how do you even know
about them? A lot of times this stuff, again, the world is at
their fingertips and all kinds of ideas are on their fingertips. And
we didn't even talk about gender identity kind of issues, and so
on. Also, a lot of this is so you say, Where did this come from?
This is where a lot of it is coming from. Right. And if it's
coming from their friend, or their friend, their young friend is only
old as old brick likely got it from social media too. So think
about this, too, and fueled and very much engaged your children
conversation. And if you're having trouble of how to engage children,
you know, we're more than happy to discuss this, because I think
that's going to be a key component in solving some of these issues of
Charlotte's
brother, he also mashallah, you had some amazing insight, and I'm
so glad you shared actual experiences, because again,
stories like that are so powerful. And I'm sure many people, you
know, may have never even known what this thing called the Dark
Web or the dark net is, is Has anybody heard of this term before?
Do you know what it is? So Dr. Ne mentioned that 80% of what's out
there online, is *, that means 20% is relatively safe. This
is the internet that we access, there is an entire other internet
that's literally called the dark world, it's a demonic place. This
is where predators exchange child *, where you can witness
live murders, where you can witness live rapes, the extent of
what people do all the blemishes, it's clear that we're living in
really, just very, very dark times, because some of the things
you can't even fathom that people are capable of doing. But you'll
hear stories coming out of this particular part of the internet
that we luckily, the majority of vast majority people don't have
access to, but it is easy to get access to it. If you just know
someone who knows these backdoor channels through the internet,
it's just a matter of some coding some, you know, certain, I'm not
sure if it's HTML or what language but there is a way to get into
this. And teens, unfortunately, are getting access to these
things. And God forbid that any kids younger are but I wouldn't be
surprised, honestly, these are terminal terms that we should
again be aware of. So I'm glad that you mentioned that normally,
I actually had it written because I was going to talk about the dark
net. So you brought that up, and I really appreciate that. But in
addition to that, you know, I just wanted to, I was gonna say some
exploring my following your point. Now I forgot it. But I did want to
mention something else about YouTube. YouTube is something that
most of us use, and we think, oh, you know, it's, um, it's innocent,
it's fine. But this is now I think there was something recently that
came out where all the brothers and people who are just very, very
evil, they are targeting children. And what they do is they create
seemingly innocent videos that are all cartoony and you think, like,
oh, it's fun, but then halfway through it, something really evil
happens, or just, you know, it's just, it's not at all innocent at
all. They're, they're, you know, there have been reports of these
popping up more and more frequently on YouTube. So don't
think, oh, you know, they're just watching a simple cartoon. And you
know, it's okay, I filtered the first couple of minutes, think
about, like, really taking it to the next step watching everything
before you give them access. You know, that's just one thing. But
in addition to what has been said about conversations and being
open, I think it's very important that we as parents, as educators,
as adults, just remember that these things have to be
established early on, if you're catching up and trying to have
these conversations with your teenagers, when you don't know
anything about them in the first place. They're going to tell you
everything you want to hear, they'll tell you no, no, I don't
do anything, you know, they'll act exactly as they should, because
they don't want to ruffle you know, they don't want to get you
upset, they don't want to, you know, basically expose what
they're doing, because there's no connection in the first place.
They just don't feel that you're interested in them. So we have to
really start you know, younger and make sure that our you know, this
connection that Dr. Nia was referring to is established early
in the years so that we are their best friend were their first you
know, line if they're curious about something, they feel
comfortable talking about certain things with us, for example, the
birds and the bees. I know in our cultures, many of our cultures, we
were raised with, you know where these topics were never discussed.
My parents never, ever, ever, ever had this conversation with me
about the birds and the bees. It's just not something that they did
because in their cultures, it's not what you know what they what
happens you just kind of learn whatever on your own. But that's
not we can't pair in the same way we can't be awkward about it.
And I think this is a big problem. In a lot of our cultures that we
get awkward about having conversations that are
uncomfortable, we get awkward about having conversations about
*, or *, * in general sexuality, gender
differences, all these things make people clam up. Because our
culture's are so conservative, and we just think, you know, forget
it, they'll learn about one day that I want to have a conversation
with him. And this is not going to work. Because if you are not the
one, having conversations with your teenagers, especially, then
someone else is going to have those conversations with them. And
that's when they get exposed to all the things you don't want them
to learn. And, you know, I'll give you an example when I was in high
school because I didn't know anything. This is a personal
story. I was in ninth grade high school girl, I didn't know
anything about this topic of * or sexuality, because it just
wasn't something we learned. And I remember dissecting a girl she was
a very popular girl, cheerleader. She was very pretty. So she
actually became the girlfriend of the senior football captain. Okay,
so he was a senior, she was a freshman. And I remember we had
class together one day, and she was just bawling. She was crying.
And I asked her if she was okay. And then she proceeded to just
tell me what happened. She said that, moments before, he took her
to the parking lot, and basically they had he, he made her perform a
sexual act, okay.
I remember feeling honestly, like just shocked, I was stunned,
because I didn't know what it was, first of all, I to learn it in
that way. I hated the fact that now when I think back on it, I was
traumatized. I was like, I didn't even know people did that. And
then I'm here trying to be a good friend to this poor girl who's
crying. She was basically it was she was, you know, she did it. But
she wasn't happy because it was her first time to experience. But
I was exposed to this world of sexuality in a very traumatic way.
And I wished you know, I don't blame my parents. But I know that
for my children and the generations to come, we can't do
that to them. I don't think any of our children should ever learn
these things and are such a horrible way, we should have
discussions at age appropriate levels, you know, when it's the
right time. So this is an A C high that I have for any parents of
teenagers who may come from similar conservative backgrounds
to not, you know, shy away from these conversations because it
makes you uncomfortable, that's not that's not putting their best
interests in mind. It's basically putting your best interests it
makes you uncomfortable, you don't want to do it, but what about what
they need as parents again, it's our job to safeguard them so put
aside those issues and if you can't do it, that's when you reach
out to a mental health professional martial law, someone
who is totally capable of having these conversations with you or
guide you on that and helping you that but just thinking like, I'm
gonna sweep it under the rug and hope it just works itself out is
negligent parenting and I'm just being really frank there. And we
can't do that to our teenagers so I mean, that's just you know, one
you know, small part of what we all can do in addition to what
we've already advised in terms of just being aware and educated
these are all things that we can do but this is another thing as
well as really being open to having these discussions in the
first place. So I'm sorry I just kind of went off but is there are
there any other questions because we took one from the brothers from
the sisters
say something if you want to know
something just take it home
and just say give me a call and if they start by throwing a tantrum
they need help them get some help
yes
credibly difficult
job
is it possible for you to help summarize created by
C website
both of us better forget
it
My second question is
specific when we're talking about YouTube
there's a lot of need to advertise the videos now. And you know, it
really is are now starting to watch that Do you have any
comments as to the impact of it and you know, what
precautions we should be taking?
And we consider those
that's a very good point you brought up just like okay, because
the advertising is horrible. I mean, you could be watching a semi
Youssef or slamming, you know, song and thinking everything's
fine and all of a sudden, you know, a half naked person comes on
the screen and advertising something inappropriate, but it
happens all the time. I've invested in you know,
I think it's kids tube or something. It's it's YouTube for
children. And this is one way that you could just completely, they've
done a very good job of filtering out all those advertisements that
are inappropriate. So if you wanted to, you know, use that,
especially for small children, for teenagers, I don't honestly know
if there is another alternative, I'm sure. Because there are
mashallah people of other faith based communities that are just as
concerned about these things as we are, and they have kind of come up
with different ways to work around the dangers of the internet by,
you know, by either creating websites that are alternatives to
a lot of these things, or by having, you know, places or
websites dedicated to really helping parents navigate what's
safe, what's not, you know, with movies and television, so there
might be an alternative to YouTube. For like an older
audience. I'm not sure does anybody Does anybody else know
here other than the kids YouTube? I think there's a lot to write for
the Muslims there is, well, there's a whole tube. So, you
know, I think it's just a matter honestly, of
being vigilant. And I'm not actually sure if the the parental
controls that we place on our computers or our our on our
internet can also prevent ads from coming up, maybe someone who uses
like net nanny or any of these other, you know, parental control,
or, you know, apps or devices, maybe does anyone have insight on
whether or not you can also protect children from seeing ads,
or other you know, pop up sort of that come up, anybody
will make this less? Sure.
So, I just want to make a copy of that. Either it was yesterday or
the day before. It was either yesterday or the day before the
report came out that
a news organization did a study on YouTube fit, they've recommended
not to visit. So just to wrap up on that.
And the other thing I just wanted to add to the website, and you
mentioned earlier, in relation to that there's another website by
Jim Steyer, who led California's efforts to banning or widen its
performance, its media has gone to media.org, I think every parent
should have access to that, because that really breaks things
not just on a superficial level, but they go, they really go down
deep down.
Third thing I want to mention is because I work in an industry,
which is closely related to media,
in terms of virtual reality that is coming through. So I spoke
earlier, I used to think that yes, we can connect our iPads and our
laptops on the biggest screen, and we know what's happening and what
gets us surfing, but with virtual reality and working suite is no
way for us to know. So those are the some of the things I just
mentioned that you should be watching it on, obviously,
consider whether you want to give them access to those, which is
like Okay, thank you so much. And so further about your thank you
for your comments. This unit actually is one of the top I agree
and I forgot it, but you reminded me to mention that as well. But in
terms of your first question about putting together a resource, yes,
I can take our talk and inshallah Dr. Amy sends me her content, we
can put something together to offer further media and the
community. And we'll add these resources to it. And also I'll do
that I'll take that as part of my task to look for any alternatives
to some of these things. Because, you know, we, like I said, we
don't want to completely disconnect, but we want to find
the best and safest routes to to connect our children are so so
inshallah I will do that. And they'll be in touch with me. And I
just like to thank you so much. Oh, yes, for
the talk. Michelle was really, really important for us. For me, I
have three kids, my oldest was seven years old. So he's not yet
get these kind of things. But
we all of us to work to kind of had
to, you know, what can we do as a thing that we can do at home? Like
I was thinking to put the baskets around, maybe every time we go to
the house, we put the cell phone there, so that, you know, kids
learn how to be disciplined about this early on, really from the
front yard of the house, if there was any tips for us that we can
practically do at home to benefit from making sure I can share
because my kids are similar in age to yours. One of the rules that we
have and my husband is here as well, as we're really strict about
the internet use for them in terms of, you know, games, you know,
they have apps and that's pretty much all they do. They don't
really do anything else. And these are apps that we've vetted and
we've made sure are perfectly safe or they don't have any crazy ads
or anything like that. But we have very clear rules that you know
there are certain times usually if we're on a long drive somewhere or
we're traveling, those are you know the time
I'm so they get apps, but in the home, on rare occasion, if they're
sick, you know, so it's just a culture we've created, where they
know that they don't even ask for, it's not something, it's an option
where, you know, I have to deal with waiting over it, because from
a very, very early age, when they even understood what apps and
devices work, they understood that in our household, they only get it
with certain designated times. It's not, you know, it's I think,
when you get really lacks about that, and it's sort of like a
today, okay, tomorrow, no, then kids are smart, you know, they,
they know how to work us, they're very good working with us. And
they, you know, just have to pout a little bit and, and do whatever
to get us. But if when you create really, really clear rules than
they know, and hunted it out, like we've never had an issue, because
they just understand that we don't get X, you know,
or, you know, we don't get devices during the day at home, it just
doesn't happen. So that's one thing. And then, you know,
obviously setting limits as your kids get older, we've talked about
we talked about the previous target srcic. But absolutely
having I am very much in favor of, for older kids, especially devices
always should be charged. And I think my
brother as my friends, I don't know if she's here, but they share
their you know, sort of rules in their home. But basically,
charging stations are outside of bedrooms, they're never, you know,
you don't charge your phone or your device in your room, computer
use, whether it's laptop, iPad, or even, you know, desktop has to be
in plain view of the family, it can't be facing a wall you don't
that's not safe, you know, if you think about it, if the family is
all gathered there, and I'm here, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm working on
my science project, right? It's so easy. Kids know how to swap
screens really quickly. So the moment you come over, it's like,
you know, math, whereas maybe two seconds earlier, they were
chatting, you know, with their friends, so everything should be
in plain sight, make sure that the devices are if you walk by them,
you can see them. And I mean, these are just some things that I
remember being presented at the last talk, but also investing in
some of these, you know, services that actually do help parents
monitor the usage. I think one of the sisters mentioned martial law,
limiting data so that you have a set amount and you'll that's it,
they cap out after that you don't you know, you're not able to
access it anymore, having cut off times, nothing passes time, these
are all little things that we can do as parents, did you want to
point out one more thing. And it's something I'm going to ask all of
us to do, and myself included. So let's see if we can make a promise
kind of book to ourselves, I think the Java, and I think this goes
with the parenting part, which is that when we come back home, from
school, the kids come from school, if you're working back from work,
that we can kind of take a promise an oath of putting these away.
Literally, like putting them away. And then for those of you who are
constantly connected to work, I know many of you have to like
reconnect, and we get, you know, logged back on and kind of can
finish work in the evening. But for those precious hours, kind of
like the two or three hours that you really like your kids are out
at school, they and you're out and work all day, or maybe you're
home, but your kids and your husband and so on have been out
all day. And when finally everyone is back together in one place.
That's where these things need to be put away, far, far away. I
mean, if you're downstairs, that's where dinnertime is, these go
upstairs or whatever I mean, to the point that they're really far
away, and you can't access them. And as kind of an oath or promise
that you've taken. Because if anything is going to actually help
with connecting again with your children. And having that channel.
Again, these are a barrier, they're just in the way, and
they're not going to actually let that happen. So if anything, it's
actually quality time, which means that if they have phones, like
you've given to them, maybe they're older kids of yours, but
they also take an oath, that this is a special sacred time with our
family. Nobody's allowed to touch any of the media until that time
is over. And maybe that will help but I'm happy to hear kind of
eventually here kind of your feedback and your experience. Is
this working or is it not? But I think inshallah we're going to
find that there actually is a difference with our children and
Sholazar.
Inshallah, brother, my name is asked me to close off until before
our Ayesha prayer. So I want to thank everybody again for coming.
I hope this was informative. I asked you to Please Forgive our
mistakes, and any, anything that we haven't actually seen, or maybe
we've given some wrong information, please forgive us.
It's a work in progress, who tell us either and if it's beneficially
asked you to make dua, we'll just take a minute here and do a lot
together.
spill out on Amazon Mahamaya and say that oh, humbug, Juana, he was
abusive education. Yeah. Autopia kitty and we asked you getting him
to accept from us this gathering. You don't have that. I mean, open
your doors and mercy. You're getting a shower.
Have mercy down upon us. Yada, yada. I mean, we asked you that
this gathering that have come here tonight to listen up to these
words that they're beneficially. Okay. Yeah, it'd be take this
knowledge and make it something we're able to implement for your
sake. Yeah, that'd be we asked you that if there was volunteer, and
that was not acceptable to you that you forgive us yesterday, and
replace it with what is better. You gotta be kidding me ask you to
keep our feet steadfast on the straight track until the last day.
Yeah, that'd be maker children's steadfast on the street truck
until the last day. Yeah, it'd be don't let us fall off the chart or
let them fall off the street track every No kidding. Yeah, there'll
be anyone who has strayed or been far away. We asked you to bring
them back to the steam. Yeah, that'd be we asked you to be
reasons why they come back to the steam. Yeah, it'd be any one of
our youth or children who are toying with the idea of ABS and we
asked you getting to take that idea away from them, and solidify
their emotion. Yeah, that'd be we ask you out of anatomy that
anybody who is dealing with any form of addiction, yada, be there
to help cure and treat that yada yada beauty? Yeah, that'd be we
asked you that we'd be people that are insights match your outsides?
Yeah, that'd be that our outsides match our insights. Yeah, I'd be
that when you look inside of us you're pleased. Yeah, it'd be the
vile traits and characteristics we have we ask you to purify the milk
and yeah, that'd be put us in the company of the righteous always
out of the diet. I mean, our children so that we may be on the
street drunk. Yeah, that'd be purifier this in this dunya.
Before the
other day, we asked you that on that last day, when you ask us the
questions, you surely will ask us that you are pleased with our
answers. Yeah, that'll be Kenny. We ask you to keep us close to you
make us from the Mikado, Robbie. Yeah, that'd be make us from those
who you love and who love you. You ought to be increased our lover
view and increase our level the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi
wa says, and make our children and ourselves people who are connected
to you and your home and the prophets of Allah Milani. Listen,
you gotta be kidding, we ask You for the highest levels of genuine
with the solid or pain and the shahada and via sleight of hand
out of anatomy, then the Prophet Muhammad? Yeah, I'd be okay. And
we asked you that on that last day out to be that you were pleased
with us that we are people who fly on the scene on St. intergender.
And we have nothing to do with the whole fire activity. Yada yada
yada. We ask you a lot of anatomy for our children and for the sake
of our children to strengthen us and to strengthen our eMoney out
of the knowledge and to help us help them up we raised our hands
in remembrance of all the sisters and brothers in this Yeah, that'd
be let us be people who were a member our sisters and brothers in
the getting him from help them help all those who are suffering,
who are oppressed, who are hungry who are scared to be who are more
who are famine, we and natural disasters. We asked you to give
them back security and Mr. BMW we asked you to return them back to
their home safely. We asked you out up and out I mean, to keep to
take that fear out of their hearts and strike down the oppressors No
kidding. Yeah, it'd be a let us be people who know and who will help
in whatever way they can help your kitty. It'd be let us be people
who will help and whatever we can do. And always remember them in
our dorms and open our enemy. We asked you that the last of our
deeds be the best. We asked you out of anatomy that the last of
our words Vida you no longer have medical school Allah and we ask
you for us the most benefit.
When I hold on to water in Lebanon, how to get all the muscle
long, modern. How do you want to add He also feels like a bit shy.
You want to be a tough guy with us. We'll sit down if you couldn't
eat McKenna's nopr sisters or brothers wait with me for
acceptance of the store soda.
Hello Picasa.