Shadee Elmasry – The issue of phone addiction
![Shadee Elmasry](https://artwork.muslimcentral.com/shadee-elmasry-150x150.jpg)
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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?