social media in today’s world
Mehreen Nazerali Versi (Arusha, Tanzania) is a published author, an avid reader, and poet. She wrote her book; Spectrum of Happiness when she was 18 and published it a few years later. She writes articles covering a number of subject areas, edits content both of academic and non-academic nature. Her aim is to build a community of critical readers who are able to read, question, and reason with content beyond what it says as plain text.
O
h my! Where do I even begin? The list of challenges is endless, and will always be. Whether it was 1,400 years ago or today after so much advancement and development. We keep complaining and also pledge allegiance that if we were present in Karbala, we would have stood by the Imam. But is that really true?
Let us look at a major challenge that we have today in depth. Social Media! It has its good and bad side, but how quickly do we fall prey to the latter? It’s just a scroll, the music is okay. It’s funny, let’s share it! Only to realize after two hours have passed that we’ve been aimlessly scrolling. All that time in vain! We, and by that I mean myself, could have done so much better. Relaxation is important and sometimes it’s a great escape, but we don’t realize how quickly we get absorbed in the mesmerizing world of these mini videos. We literally know all the trends, thanks to this. Now how many of us know about our Prophets and Imams? Do we know how they lived and what they stood for? Do we know stories from the Qur’an?
How does this relate to my introduction you may ask? Now, 1,400 years ago, people knew the Imam, they could see him and knew his whole family too! Yet they stood on the opposite side and fought against both Islam and humanity. What was their main obstacle? Worldly gains! And that is exactly what we are after. Social media plays a huge role in keeping us up to date on worldly matters. At this point, I ask, who is thinking of a Barbie birthday or any sort of makeover? Can you see the colour pink without associating with it Barbie anymore? To attain this and the grandeur that is being presented, we may sway away from our goals in order to fulfil such desires.
We still do have a chance of standing by Imam Hussain (a.s). There is still a Yazid of our time that we need to identify and fight against, and sometimes it’s sitting right in our pocket. As difficult as it is, that is a test that we as Muslims have in today’s day and age. We also have all the tools to get through these tests, it’s just a matter of taking a step back and holding onto faith and the very many resources we have available.
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