Shadee Elmasry – The issue of phone addiction

Yeah, I mean, for me the other day, it's it was funny for me the

other day, it was lunch. And I was at the office and I decided, You

know what? My eyes were hurting. And I was like, You know what, I

don't want to be on my phone. I don't want to be on my computer.

So I left my phone in my bag. And I just went out for an hour, hour

and a half. And I went to the park without a phone. And I was like,

you know, it was a crazy experience for me, because I

hadn't done this in the last five years. And I was like, you know,

what, if something happened to me right now, and I died, nobody

would know. Yeah, what's going on? But you know, it was almost

liberating. To be just away from people and the idea of people

knowing what was going on. And and it's honestly, it's all a myth.

I'm telling you. It's all a myth, the emergency thing, right? The

emergency. I mean, people today, if you go out for groceries, and

you didn't take your phone, and so and your dad called your mom

called you or your spouse called you, they think you died.

So what in the world is wrong with you? Right? They think the cops

won't even do something for 24 hours, right? Because people go

off the grid. And what I did is, guess what? You're all getting

used to my new reality. Right? I'm off the grid. Grid. Let's start

Don't you need to have guts you need to you need it needs to be a

gutsy call. And I say look you all I tell people once you get off,

put it put it down. They said no. Oh, my mom might call me she got

mad get more worried, right? Doo, doo, doo cadoola just human beings

will adjust. Right? So they all get gotta get used to it for your

benefit. And your benefit. Is there a benefit I'm telling you

this thing has is ruinous to marriages. I knew a guy.

Everything was fine in his life. As soon as he got a smartphone, he

was so trapped into it. His wife complained she can't even have a

conversation with the guy anymore. Subhan Allah raises his shake when

give him advice. He said, Sure, give me advice. He said, get rid

of that thing when you're at the table with your wife. And when

you're in your bedroom with your wife, and you're on your bed,

you're checking text messages, what is wrong with you? Right,

something's a problem. And it's a big addiction. So this is a this

is a huge deal. It's an uphill battle. Absolutely. I mean, it's

something that I face, you know, day in and day out. And it's

something I've been thinking about this week. And after I got that

app to track my time, I was like, you know, this, this has to go to

jail and a man came to me said, I want to draw near to Allah. He

said, It's impossible for you. You said why? He said, you don't have

time. He has no room in your heart for Allah azza wa jal. He's just

you have so much dunya. And when you look at why we're not

advancing spiritually, there's no time. Right? We got no time for

Allah azza wa jal, we give Allah no time. And in order to do

something great. You have to say no, to a lot of other good things

that you can possibly do. You got to say no to a lot of things that

you could possibly do. You got to strip away like la isla is

negation before affirmation. no God except Allah, you have to

clear the slate. And even the the Bauhaus school of art is all about

clearing the slate. Right, right. And then being very selective

about what you put in. Right. So we got to radically remove stuff

from life. And I really don't know how far people have the discipline

to do this. But you got to try it. With, with, I'm still trying with

myself, right? I got my little iPod or my phone, which acts like

an iPod. And I still control it, right? Because it's, it's, it

could be insidious, it could sneak in there, right? But you got to

radically remove stuff. And you got to make choices, because

you're going to feel like I'm disconnected. Right? You might be

disconnected to what creation, you're trying to connect to the

Creator. And I'm telling you, a lot of depression happens even to

good people. They become like, oh my gosh, they think like I'm

irrelevant in the world. Let me tell you something you posting

about your kittens and your your rants about what happened to you

by a Trump supporter in the parking lot does not render you

relevant at all? Absolutely. It's the absence of people's Eman is

getting so weak, they need constant confirmation of their

emotions from other people. This is a huge problem. Constantly.

They need confirmation of other people, right? For everything,

right? They need support. I'm going for I'm going for you know,

pick up my mom from JFK. Okay, what do you want me to do? You

need a therapist for this. Why are you telling me this stuff? Right?

So this is a constant confirmation of emotions, I think is because no

connection to Allah azza wa jal is getting very weak on Allah. I

mean, another thing, right, it's not exactly related, but somewhat

related, that I've been thinking about this week, actually, as a

matter of fact, is, you know, whenever I'm on social media,

whenever I'm on something I see, you know, people I talk to people

a lot and they're like, Okay, you know, you're you guys are involved

in the masjid. You do these things like, how do you have time for

these things? It's like other than the fact that we waste a lot of

time on on our phones. I see people or every other day I go on

my Facebook and I see some guys in Hawaii, some guys in the Bahamas.

Some guys like you know, watching the cherry blossoms. It's like an

every week type

thing, and I was just thinking to myself, you know, Subhan Allah

back in the day, right? There was this concept of going to the

masjid for every song. If you weren't at the masjid for Fudger.

You weren't enough? Yeah. Right. And I was thinking to myself, you

know, if people brought this concept back, people wouldn't be

traveling all over the world because they wouldn't have time

because you'd be worried. Where am I going to be? Brian, my though?

The thing is, the thing is about people what they share online is,

you got to believe you got to believe in concept of hazard,

right? This is different from the point you're making, but you got

to believe that concept person, why are you posting how much you

love your wife and you will get along for 10 years? You do not

believe in the concept of acid, we believe in the concept of hazard,

which means I'm not going to go and say, Oh, my life is miserable

because I'm afraid of acid. I'm not going to go and be obsessive

compulsive. I don't get why people are sharing their intimacy on on

Facebook. I really just makes me go crazy when I see these things,

right. It's I'm wondering why are people doing this?