The Social Media Mirage

Editor’s Note: Contains discussion suitable for Adult Audience

By: Rahamatullah Siddique, Vancouver, British Columbia

Ask yourself: when was the last time you oversaw what your child was doing on a device? The fact is, for a community that prides itself on things like family values, we have now allowed a new “family” member to join us –the device. The familiarity of social media gives us a sense of security, but that this apparent certainty is actually a mirage.

Devices are now a staple in our lives, and tragically, it is impossible to live without them. Leaving the house? It's imperative we have our phone even before we ensure the kids are buckled in. However, the real danger now lies in the upbringing of our children. Many parents have now turned to handheld devices as a parenting aid, whether they want to accept it or not. We walk through malls or parks and see kids glued to a phone or tablet. It begs the question: who really is raising our children? More importantly, what are our children being exposed to?

Digital devices are great tools. Just like any power tool, they require training and maturity to use. Ask yourself: would you give a child a power saw and leave them unsupervised? Unsupervised internet access grants children access to anything you can imagine importantly, our phones even give third parties access to our homes and children. Applications like TikTok, Whatsapp, Instagram, or Facebook have open access to our cameras, microphones and personal data. Besides the dangers that this possesses for adults, our children are put at even greater risk. Recent studies have shown that marketing companies are now targeting children with algorithms designed to detect a child’s face in the device's camera. This helps organizations and predators gain access to your children. Privacy rights? Yeah, nonexistent.

Let’s set the 'marketing' point of view aside. We have all accepted that today’s society is running on consumerism and capitalism, whether we like it or not. Sadly, there is something much more dangerous occurring. The unmonitored use of devices is causing our children to fall into sin. Please note that this article is not about how the use of devices could be haraam. It can lead us away from the time we can be making dhikr. Or it can delay our salah. Even though those views are not completely wrong, I want us to be informed about real issues. So, I will touch on three major issues. The idea is to spark thought.

Pornography

Whether we want to accept it or not, little Aisha and Hussien are at a greater risk of falling into pornographic addiction with the use of phones. The growing brains of children cannot comprehend the vast and huge traumatic effect of porn. On the other hand, we as adults have been so accustomed to the widespread sexualized content in our society, that we don ’t even notice it. Furthermore, we are able to “tune it out”. We can come across that obscene popup, skip it, and move on with our life. But our children, though desensitized, are led down a dark rabbit hole of sexual content, and exposure to predators. Most kids are exposed to sexual content at a young age. Human beings are wired to be aroused by that content from the time puberty begins. Kids don’t even realize what they are seeing is haram, because it has become so normal. To top it all off, parents refuse to address the taboo topics, even though these are the topics that need to be touched on the most. At the teenage years, curiosity leads our youth further into the pornographic world, which leads to addiction. This seems like a stretch, but it really isn’t. Think about the last time you got lost watching YouTube videos, one after another, and then combine that with the rush of sexual arousal. We are commanded by Allah to stay celibate until marriage, which is a hard-enough struggle for us. Parents are worried about our kids falling into sin in real life, when in reality, they are falling into sin in the digital world much more often.We choose to turn a blind eye to this reality. The harmful social and psychological impacts of being exposed to this material are substantial. Pornography also leads to unrealistic expectations in marriage. Our children are led into sin, and don’t even understand it's wrong, solely because we trusted our new member of the family, the device.

Sexual content is everywhere. We are submerged in it. We like to pretend that our kids are not seeing it, when they are absorbing it like a sponge. More education is needed, informing them on the negative psychological and social impacts as well as the religious implications. It is a big sin to even look at such content. Allah commands us to lower our gaze and zina that can be committed with the eye. These two very crucial topics are needed to be addressed today. We need to wake up!

Predators

Social media apps have enabled the predators of the world to have nearly unlimited access to children. We all have apps like Instagram or Snapchat, and it is these very apps that make it easy to talk to strangers, in ways that are sometimes untraceable. More importantly, our kids have no idea of who they are even talking to, which is a problem. Children and teens are led to speak to strangers that appear to care for them, or even love them, making our kids feel comfortable to open up in ways you can never imagine.

With the struggle to maintain our Muslim identity and spiritual values being at an all time high, our youth are more susceptible to bullying and rejection from their peers. They look for support, a friend who wants to listen, sometimes that “friend” is someone they have only ever met online. We were instructed from a religious standpoint that the company we keep is a particularly important factor in our spiritual well-being, so how can this not apply to digital communications? Ask yourself, do you truly know who your child is speaking to online? What exactly is your child exposed too, and are you okay with it?

Apps

All applications are built with some sort of attraction or benefit to captivate the consumers. Otherwise they will become obsolete. Similarly, an application like Snapchat, something all the kids love, has utility because they have cheesy filters. This app can share your location publicly, allow you to transmit messages/pictures/videos without any history or evidence, and add strangers to chat within your vicinity with a few taps. We train our kids to keep good company, to build trust, to adhere to caution, then we give them access to an application that can get them connected to a pervert within seconds of opening it.

Physical Implications

As a Karate Instructor for many years, I can personally attest to what toll heavy device dependence takes on the adults of tomorrow. You will find that hand eye coordination plummets, along with reflex speed, and overall balance. (Let's leave the effect on social skills for another time). Why is this an issue? These skills are necessary for survival. Watch how youth are glued to a screen, unaware of their surroundings (sight, sound, or touch). These skills, and spatial awareness is critical to development. A device cannot replace playing in the sandbox, kicking a ball, or running in the park. Kids need to experience this in order to develop. We need to push our kids to get involved in more hands-on activities, and experience the world around them.

So why is it that we are turning a blind eye to the dangers that exist? Are we choosing to be ignorant? Are we believing that our child is a perfect child, in capable of committing sin? Perhaps we feel that since everyone is providing their kids with devices, we need to as well, so they are not left out. Or, and I say this with caution, we begin to enjoy the luxury of a quiet, maintenance free child, which occurs once they have that device in their hand.

To those who stand by statements like “SubhanAllah, this would never have occurred back home”, I’d like to stop you right there. The fact is this occurs back home more than you want to accept. WiFi and mobile internet have enabled this to occur anywhere in the world, not to mention the sex culture that exists in secret in the streets and homes of other nations. It's there, whether we want to accept it or not. Most of the older generation is stuck in a time warp, saying that back home is perfect, sadly that so-called “perfection” only existed in the earlier days or we are delusional about our pasts too.

What I am hoping to achieve is to lead to the realization that we as adults in our community need to pay attention to the dangers our youth are exposed to. We had the luxury of being disconnected. They no longer do.