BREAKING THE CHAINS 2019 - Social Media Addiction by

BREAKING THE CHAINS 2019

Social Media Addiction

Speaker: Sheikh Belal Assad

Opening

All praise is due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah

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Personal Introduction to Social Media

Well, thank you for having me again. It's not my best topic. It's actually the first time I give an official topic on social media.

I'll tell you the reason why. I've never been a social media person. Only about two and a half years ago, I started using social media. I used to use YouTube, correct. But it's a good way of learning. However, using social media where you interact with people all the time, I only started about two and a half years ago.

And the only app I ever used was Facebook. Never more than that. Not Instagram, no Snapchat, no Balut, none of that stuff. So all these apps, I don't know anything about them. My students keep telling me. My son now knows about it. He tells me how to use it. And he says it's a good platform for using it to talk to young people. Which is okay, which is fine.

But I can tell you something. Before I go into my talk, just something personal I found about myself. And I think I can share it with all of you as well, as humans.

When I first wanted to go on Facebook, it was only for one reason. People kept telling me: "What are you doing? You've got to get with the times. And use it for Dawah. People are on there. You've got to go on there. Because that's where people read and see. And you can do your lectures on there and all that stuff."

So I thought, well, this is a good platform for Dawah. And I was convinced.

But one friend of mine, who is savvy with all this stuff - he's really good at it. He says to me: "Be very careful. If you're going to go on it, you make a time in the day that you check. You know, you check it. That's it. You've got to really commit to it. You've got to be a man about it. Only from this time to that time. And if you're going to have any friends, have only close family. Unless you're going to give Dawah, then make it public. That's fine."

So I went really forward. And I said: "I can do that."

Yeah, in the beginning you can do that. Then I saw my sister. And she's very good with all this stuff, of course. Because she's much younger than me. And I said: "What should I watch out for? Before I go into it, you've got to watch out. What are you doing? Where are you going to put yourself into?"

And she says to me: "That's okay. You can always look at, you know, post your stuff. And see some comments and reply if you want for Dawah. But just avoid one place. Avoid the newsfeed. Newsfeed, people put nonsense stuff about their lives. And feeling sorry for themselves. And some people want to make themselves look big and whatever. And you just keep scrolling. And you never stop."

So I said: "Good. Newsfeed, forget it. I'm not going there."

That bar on the left side, the newsfeed, I never went there. So Alhamdulillah, I went like that. Started making specific time in the day. Didn't touch the newsfeed.

But it doesn't stop there. The shaitan comes to you and says: "Have a look. Have a look at the newsfeed."

"Why should I have a look at the newsfeed, ya shaitan?"

And the shaitan says to me: "Well, because you're going to give Dawah to the people. You need to know how they think, what they're talking about. So that when you talk about the deen, you know to be relevant."

And this is what Allah says, Sheikh and I were talking about it. That the shaitan said to Allah, when he said: "I'm going to lead them all astray." He says: "I'm going to sit waiting for them on your straight path. I'm going to go into their religion. I'm going to make them sheikhs. I'm going to make them da'is, but then I'm going to be shifty around."

I remembered that verse and I thought I can handle it because I'm sincere. So I looked at the newsfeed and I did learn a lot about the people. And my topic started to change. My lecture started to change. How I addressed my students at school also changed and it was very effective.

But subhanAllah, as humans, we start getting into this problem. We get deeper and deeper and we don't know how to swim back. When I had spare time, I would look at the newsfeed. When I felt a bit down, I look at the newsfeed. Sometimes I put a post, at times it got a little bit emotional. And I felt tempted to put something about myself and get some friends to say: "Oh, we feel sorry." Send me one of those teary emojis, you know, the teary one. So I liked it.

Looked at it and I started enjoying this stuff. This is me, Sheikh. And I thought I would never get into this until it came a time, and I have to admit, wallahi, because we're the same. I'm not any different. Sheikh's not any different. We're all human beings.

And I started getting too deep into it. Just scrolling and scrolling. I started to remember nursery rhymes when I was a kid: "Round and round he goes, where he stops, no one knows."

What am I looking for? Even I don't know. It became like that. You just keep scrolling and scrolling. What are you looking for? I don't know. When will you stop? And then you start doubting yourself.

So this is what happened to me. And then, alhamdulillah, in the nick of time, I started to work on myself. And I'll discuss that, inshallah, towards the end with solutions.

So I thought I'll start off on this common ground between us that we're not different.

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Statistics on Social Media Usage

I heard about social media at that time that is very beneficial. I did some research when I came here. And this is what I found. This is reliable research. I looked at different studies, actually, across scholarly articles.

They said there's 7.7 billion people in the world. So as of March 2019, there's 7.7 billion people estimated in the world.

4.4 billion people are internet users. Wow.

3.9 billion people are active on social media. So 4.4 use the internet, but 3.9, which is the largest chunk, use social media, socializing.

45% of the total world population, therefore, or close to 50%, half the world population use social media.

That makes 366 million new people who started using social media in the past year, which makes it about a million new people joining social media every single day. That's between 2018 and 2019. One million people joining social media in the past year.

And I found that 2.5 billion people are on Facebook alone. So Facebook's the highest number of people who join. And then you've got all these other apps.

You know which ones they are. Now there's this one called TikTok. My daughter comes up and she's 11 years old and says: "Baba, not TikTok." I said: "Why not TikTok?" She said: "People show very bad things, Baba, and I will never go on it because I know that this will make me addicted and will teach me bad things and I will not do it."

I thought, mashallah, that's amazing. And I realized from a young age, we've got to teach them. From a young age, instill it into their heads. Because that's when their brains are developing and they can develop on that. And they have a stronger ability to resist and be resilient as they get older.

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Teaching Children Early

We were discussing with Ustaz just before, for example. My son, when he was nine years old, now he's 16. I talked to him about pornography and I talked to him about puberty and I talked to him about all these things.

I said: "Son, when you're about 13, 14, see those girls?" He goes: "Ugh." I go: "No, no, no. When you are 13 and 14, you are not going to say, ugh. You're going to say, ooh."

And I said to him, he goes: "No way, Baba. I will never. Don't stop talking like that."

He brings his friend in and he wants to talk. He goes: "Hey, listen to what my dad said." And he goes - he's another nine-year-old. He goes to me: "But can we stay away from it?" I go: "Stay away from what?" He goes: "Can we stay away from the place of puberty?"

He thought it was a place, poor kid. And I said to him: "No, you're not going to stay away." And I said to him: "You've got to be careful. The shaitan is going to tell you, look, and you're going to find them attractive."

So what I found is it worked so well. Okay, not 100%, but it was an excellent head start to teach at a very, very young age.

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Is Social Media Good or Bad?

Now, brothers and sisters, social media, good or bad? Hands up if you think it's good. They're hesitating, right? I think it's good, too. I think it's good. Hands up if you think it's bad. Okay, all right. Hands up maybe if you think it's all good. All bad.

Okay, it is good and it is bad. There's good to it and there's bad to it.

It's a social network. It's a beautiful platform which was initially made in order to make people more successful on the internet and doing better in marketing and trade and career and all that stuff, which there was a really good intentions.

The good side of social media is something which I call a miracle of the 21st century. I think it's from Allah. And we got to recognize which ones are from Allah and use it and benefit ourselves and other people from it. And then there's the shaitan side.

Everything we do, there's always what Allah loves about it and what the shaitan hates about it. Even alcohol, Allah says there's good in it, right? But its bad outweighs its good, so stay away from it, right? Gambling, there's good in it. Allah acknowledges that.

The prayer, when you pray five times a day, there's good in it. But there's also a bad side to it. Yeah, you know what it is? Showing off. When people start using their prayer for worldly reasons.

He sees this gorgeous girl and he knows that her dad goes to the masjid. So he starts going to the masjid. Puts himself in his face so that dad can accept him that he's praying at the masjid.

Well, that's not really good, is it? Now the shaitan is saying use the halal, use the good stuff for otherworldly benefit. And that's what Allah tells us. That people who don't do things sincerely for the sake of Allah, that are meant to be worshipped to Allah, then it's all gone. It gets destroyed. Allah says in the Quran, their actions get destroyed.

The Good Side of Social Media

So what is good about social media? Well, listen to this. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan Ibn Majah)

"The believer who mixes with the people and is patient and persevering and resilient with the harm that comes from them is better than the believer who sits back and does not mix with the people and does not need to be patient with any of their harm."

And I believe that today in the 21st century, social media is the greatest place for dawah. The greatest place. It's amazing. It's probably one of the best, but you can't use it just by itself. Of course, you need to go and ask people face-to-face, ulema and mashayikh and people of knowledge and experts face-to-face because you only get really a bit of information from social media and you get to pick and choose, but it's very hard to understand everything.

So we need to always ask.

Benefits of social media:

1. Learning online - You can learn amazing things online and you can teach other people online amazing things. Using it for education is brilliant.

2. Success and opportunities online - Spectacular, especially for single mothers, for example. Like they want to make a business, they want to sell, they want to do something and they can't go out or maybe they can't find a halal place to work in. It's challenging for them. Online is another way of going about it. Nothing wrong with that, mashallah.

3. Spreading awareness or campaigning for change - That's something that is, wallahi, what I think is a 21st century miracle. That you can make changes in the world through social media for the better or for the worse, of course.

4. Connecting with family and close friends - Keeping your ties with your relatives, especially if they're overseas or people you don't see too often or too busy. That's a good thing. That's a beautiful thing. Sometimes we make a WhatsApp group or another group where siblings are on there, brothers and sisters,

5. Halal entertainment

Halal entertainment is fine. Sometimes we need to mellow out a little bit. You can use social media for a bit of halal entertainment. Halal.

There is Ibn al-Qayyim, we've mentioned him before, a great scholar. He says: one of the ways that a believer needs to continue in their worship in life and to do better and to be successful is to sometimes get a little bit of entertainment, halal entertainment.

And in those days, he says, I was sitting under a tree and writing my book. I think he was writing Ad-Da' wad-Dawa', which means the sickness and the ailment and its cure. He goes: I looked at two men and they were each carrying a heavy log, one on this side, one on the other side. And I knew it was very heavy and they're sweating in the heat.

So I found something amazing. They decided to play a game of entertainment. One would say a verse of poetry, make it up on the spot, and the other one has to reply and continue it on the same, with the same grammar and conditions of the poetry. And they would reply to each other, make each other laugh.

And he said: I realized that it released, it took off some of the tiredness and the exhaustion, made them forget about the pain and the heaviness of the log by getting this entertainment. So sometimes a worshiper needs a little bit of that.

6. Marriage prospects

Even, dare I say, marriage, marriage prospects, talking about marriage, you can use social media to get there. But obviously, that's a sensitive area. There must be boundaries and conditions to doing that.

For example, I would say that if somebody is very young and inexperienced, then they need their parents' knowledge and permission to be able to talk to someone for the prospects of marriage. They should know about it.

And if you are older and have experience in life and you're quite mature and aware, you can also look on social media for marriage prospects, especially some people who convert to Islam, they don't have family to help them out, or some people who don't have much of a network in the community.

They can join certain groups like we have in Melbourne, one called Melbourne Muslima. These are beautiful sisters, good sisters, that most of them converted to Islam and they help each other. So it's a beautiful network that can help a lot of sisters.

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The Bad Side: How Addiction Develops

So, brothers and sisters, these are good things in social media, but what are the bad things?

Well, the first thing is the addictive behavior.

Well, look, where does everything start? This guy, this great scholar named Ibn al-Qayyim, he says: every single thing in life starts with a thought. Something pops into your head.

A friend says something to you. Someone says: "Oh, social media is good, why aren't you on there?" A thought comes up, and it comes from your head. It comes from the environment, you know, or desires, your personal desires, or it comes from the shaitan.

Let's say it's bad thoughts, right? And then, if you do not repel the bad thought, it evolves in your brain into an idea. "Ah, that's a good idea." A thought just always, you go to sleep, your thoughts are still working.

But then if you turn it into an idea and you don't repel it, then it turns into a plan. "Hey, now it's time to implement it. Let's learn about it and see how I'm going to implement it."

If you do not stop the plan and repel the plan, then it turns into an action.

Now, if you do not repel the action, it turns into what? A HABIT.

The Progression:

1. Thought
2. Idea
3. Plan
4. Action
5. HABIT

Which one's the hardest to stop? Obviously, the habit. The earlier you stop, the easier it is not to get to bad habits. Always, it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter.

Does not matter how religious or unreligious, whether you're married or not married, if you think you're mashallah. When a thought turns into these things, it becomes very difficult to stop the habit. But obviously, habits can be reversed as well. The first thing is through repentance. That's where it all starts, but we'll talk about that soon.

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Parents' Responsibility

At an early age, you're in grade four or five or grade three, and you've got this social media stuff. You've got this mobile phone, the iPads, all that stuff, and you see that your friends go on it, and they talk about it at school. You get a thought, and then parents are now responsible.

We buy them an iPad. We buy them a phone. We buy them something. Maybe not a phone, but something for little kids. We give them our phone. I'm guilty of it too. We give them our phone, and we go on things like YouTube for kids.

It all starts there, right? Which is okay so far. We try to make them watch Islamic stuff, but subhanAllah, it's very hard for them to just stop there. They start clicking to other places, and then before you know it, they've evolved into a habit of not knowing what else to do except phone, iPad, phone, iPad.

And then they feel privileged, and they start sulking if you don't give it to them, and then they start giving you a headache, and you haven't got time for that headache, so then you give that to them, and then you want the phone back as well.

You can't get it back, so you get another phone, and then you start going on it yourself, and you know what?

Among the leading causes that studies have showed is that children copy their elders. They copy their parents.

So if we are on it ourselves, no matter what you say to your children, they're going to be exactly the same as you, if not more.

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Fragmented Attention and Its Effects

Brothers and sisters, the latest studies show, as Brother Altaf said, it showed him five hours per day of usage. The latest studies show, on average, overall in the world, it's two hours per day, but I don't believe it.

I think the two hours per day or four hours per day is called fragmented attention. Fragmented. It's throughout the day where you revisit the phone again and again, and you take breaks, and you revisit it again and again.

So fragmented attention for about two hours, and that's very dangerous because what happens - studies have shown - that when you have fragmented attention, then it lowers your level or capacity of concentration in the day, especially for the young people in our generation. As I told you as a teacher, I see this.

In the past, we knew that fish have a seven-second attention span. They say that humans had a little bit more, up to about 15 minutes or even 20 minutes. The older you are, the more concentration span you have. Children had about 10 minutes or a few minutes, and then it kept going down and down until now they say that children have a lower attention span than fish. Five seconds, six seconds.

And as a teacher now, it becomes very difficult to keep their attention. You've got to move quickly. You've got to move quickly, and most people don't listen or watch clips unless they're less than about two minutes on average. It used to be 15 minutes, but now two minutes. Otherwise, they don't want anything.

What are you going to teach in two minutes? Just a very quick meme or a little picture or something like that. And this fragmented attention makes us want fast information, quick information. We get bored very quick. Our attention span is very low. And then again, we also scroll between things, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly.

That translates into our life. You no longer can focus. You no longer can have this high capacity of concentration. You no longer can listen for a long time. You no longer can think deeply. Superficial level.

And it reminds me of a hadith of the Prophet. Towards the end of time, he said:

مِنْ عَلَامَاتِ السَّاعَةِ

"From the signs of the last hour..."

He said, when knowledge... Listen carefully. Knowledge will increase. There's great knowledge. He also said, when ignorance will also increase.

How can knowledge increase and ignorance increase?

Well, the word عِلْم (knowledge) in Arabic, has two meanings:

1. عِلْم either means knowing lots of information, vast information, but not deep understanding
2. عِلْم also means knowing lots of information and deep understanding

That's true عِلْم. To be able to know lots of information and to know it deeply and understand it. And then knowing how to apply it. And that's called حِكْمَة (wisdom).

Lots of information, he said, people will know so much. Any question you want, you just go on Google and you ask it. MashaAllah, you get lots of information. It's amazing. I love that part.

But, understanding how to apply it, different story. And therefore, there's ignorance. We cut and paste a lot, but we don't understand what we're cutting and pasting. What is its effect on social media? What am I teaching people?

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Mental Health Issues from Social Media

My brothers and sisters, before I go on, there are many mental health issues associated with constant revisiting of social media accounts. What are they?

It is reported that children between 7 to 12 years old who spent more than two hours per day reported higher levels of three things common between them:

1. Depression

2. Anxiety
3. Suicidal thoughts

The phones have become a limb rather than a tool. How do you know it? Try and be without your phone for 10 minutes, half an hour, one hour and see the effect on you. You feel like part of your body is missing. Your limb is missing.

Social media companies actually designed social media to be addictive. These are not my words. These are the words of the actual social media designers. You can easily find this on the internet, on YouTube, whatever you want.

They said its main purpose was how to maximize your attention. Why do they want to maximize your attention? So that they can advertise more stuff so that you can see it and come back, and buy more. So companies can make more money for profit.

Who's the guinea pig? Who's the product? You.

Now, you are the consumer. They are the providers. The companies are there, are the people who they have to rely on to bring their stuff and put it on there.

Worse than you being the consumer is when they have set up social media so that you become the product. You become the product.

Wallahi, this is exactly why they set it up. And to use your psychological vulnerability. They study psychology and they know how to make people addicted to something. To use our psychological vulnerability in order to maximize their profits on social media.

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The Social Validation Feedback Loop

There's a guy named Sean Parker. He was the former Facebook president. What does he say about social media? He says:

"It's a social validation feedback loop. Exactly the kind of thing a hacker, like myself, would come up with. Because you're exploiting a vulnerability of human psychology."

What's a social validation feedback loop? A social validation feedback loop means when you become a product on social media and then you start to place a currency on yourself. How much are you worth?

That makes you come back again and again and again and more and more and more because now it's personal. It's about you. What are you worth?

It makes you falsely think that social media gives you the value of who you are.

How pretty am I?

Let's put it to social media test. If I get a lot of likes, it tells me that I'm very pretty. If I don't get too many likes, it tells me I'm not very pretty.

• If I'm successful, let's see how successful I am. Let's put my product up there. Let's put myself up there. Let's talk about my achievements. If I get a lot of likes, I feel good about myself.

But then I want more likes because now there's a competition. I see other people got more likes than me.

They did this experiment about this particular picture, one picture, the same picture. They put this picture in a study of a cohort of people and they put few likes for one picture and more likes for the other picture which is exactly the same picture.

Which one did they look at more? People clicked thousands of times more on the one that had more likes and less on the one that had fewer likes.

It's about how the shaitan works. It's amazing. Why did these people go on the ones with more likes? Because in here, we've already been conditioned by social media designers to think that your value is based on how many likes you have, how many interests you have.

So that picture is a very popular picture because it must be really good. Now, what about me? Why am I going there? Because I don't want to miss out, man. I've got to be part of this loop. I've got to be part of this great success over here. I want to be there.

And then at the same time, you start comparing yourself to that. You say: I've got to do the same with me. What about me? What about me? Me, me, me.

You know, we love ourselves naturally. When you take a group photo, who do you zoom in first? Who do you zoom in first? Come on. You zoom into yourself first.

It has gotten so bad to value yourself that in order to get more likes, I have to use another app who are making billions of dollars, which makes me look like a rabbit or a cat or a dog or something like that. I mean, really, because it's got a filter. I know, I know.

We don't do it because we want to look like animals. We're doing it because it filters our face and makes us look much nicer. And then we're expecting people to tell us. And then we go and tell other people: "I want people to accept me the way I am. What, they don't like it? I'm being who I am. I don't care what people think."

Really? So why, what's all, why is all this?

So our poor selves need to really value ourselves properly. We look in the mirror of ourselves. When I look at the mirror of other people on social media, this is the biggest problem that we have on social media at the moment.

The Dopamine Reward System

My dear brothers and sisters in Islam, the main problem therefore with social media is this loop that makes you come back again and again. But why? Why do I do that?

Ask yourself the question. Well, it's got something to do with this center in the brain. It's called the reward circuit inside the brain. And all the other speakers will talk to you about it. It's the same thing that goes across whether it's social media addiction, pornographic addiction, drug addiction, any addiction in the world.

It's that central rewarding system. And the name for it is, in science, is nucleus accumbens. Nucleus accumbens, because you succumb to it. And what this does is, it releases something called dopamine.

What's dopamine do in normal life? Why did Allah create dopamine in us? Well, we know when you're hungry, you got to eat, right? The dopamine is released telling you, you need to satisfy the hunger. It's called dopamine. So then you got to do something about it. And sometimes you feel happy, something to look forward to, correct?

So then you go and eat, you satisfy the hunger and another hormone is released. It's called serotonin. What's the job of serotonin that Allah created? To tell you it's enough. You are now satisfied. You've had enough. Yeah, go do other things.

Fish don't have serotonin. That's why they keep eating, eating until they explode. So we don't want to become fish.

Now dopamine is released. Now imagine this. If I keep releasing dopamine over and over and I'm expecting rewards over and over, the serotonin tells me it's enough. It's enough. It's enough, but it's not working anymore, right? Because I'm still anticipating more. I still anticipate and I take breaks, but then that dopamine keeps getting released faster than the serotonin, more than the serotonin.

And then I'm always thinking: I've got to get these rewards. I've got to get the rewards.

The "Magic Maybe" Phenomenon

They called it the magic maybe. The magic maybe is when you got your phone and there's no notification. Doesn't tell you you got new likes or messages. There's nothing, but you have to check anyway.

Maybe I got one more like. Maybe yes, maybe no. Doesn't matter, let's just check anyway. If it's no, that's okay. If it's yes, oh good. Both of them are releasing that need for a reward.

Oh my God, if people are going to face something that doesn't exist, you want to keep going back to it.

And then they said that there's something else. How do you know that you're addicted? They said when the phone is not in your pocket and you still feel as if it's vibrating. That's that syndrome thing. You think it's still ringing. So you reach out and there's nothing there.

And it really works when you're on the airplane because when you're traveling, they say switch off your electronic devices and realize yourself if you feel like your hand needs to reach out to something or you heard a vibration or something like that. That's a definite sign that you need to do something about your mental state in relation to social media and using your phone because a human being was not created to be like that.

Comparison to Cocaine

My brothers and sisters in Islam, check this one out. A scholar by the name of Robert Spelski from Stanford University said, he did a dedicated research on social media and he said: what happens is that this reward system that you're after, it gives a 400 spike in dopamine release which is slightly lower than the high you get from cocaine.

Cocaine, 400 spikes. And subhanAllah, it's a drug and they also said it's the same effect of gambling and drugs. It's even worse, they said. Why?

Because imagine, you go to a gambling, you go to a casino, you play on the poker machine, you're always expecting: maybe I'll get it this time, maybe I'll get it this time. But imagine taking the machine home with you. You're sleeping with it, you're showering with it, you're going to the toilet with it, you're taking it to school with you, you're taking it to work with you. It's always with you.

These are real studies, man.

Allah said:

"Know that this worldly life is nothing but playing and games and competing and boasting among yourselves in wealth and children..." [Quran 57:20]

So when you're competing with other people on social media, competing for something which is false and will ruin you and the society.

Normalizing Shamelessness

One of the worst things that we can do on social media is when we start showing every single thing about our

life. And you know what I've seen lately?

Students are normalizing their shamelessness.

There is now a new definition of hijab. A new definition for both men and women because men wear a type of hijab, right? A new definition of what is haram and halal in relation to gender relationships. A new definition of how to dress properly and what is not acceptable.

In fact, people are offended more as a result of social media because when I see a lot of people doing other things that I can't do, I feel like I'm cheated. Why is God doing that to me when everybody else is doing it?

Rasulullah ﷺ said:

"Don't be a copycat saying: when people do good, I do good, and when they do bad, I do bad. But rather, when they do good, you do good. And when they do bad, you avoid the bad that they are doing. Don't be like everyone else. Don't be a copycat." [Sunan al-Tirmidhi]

This is what really it means that you are being yourself and valuing yourself.

I asked the students a question: "What does it mean to love yourself and be yourself?" And they couldn't answer it. They go: "Be myself, like who I am."

"What are you? So if you're a thief, is that being yourself? Just continue to be a thief? You swear a lot, continue to swear a lot because that's who I am. You've got to accept me the way I am. If you've got no shame, you say, just keep going. You either accept me the way I am or nothing."

No, being yourself means looking at your faults and trying to make yourself grow and making yourself better. That's being yourself. You are really valuing yourself.

And there's that thing happening on social media. When I see more and more and more and more of sins and people normalizing certain things that I know that Allah has told me to stay away from, no matter what it is, I'm going to start doing it myself. Even if I know it's wrong, I start doing it myself.

Keeping Sins Private

My brothers and sisters in Islam, that's why Rasulullah ﷺ said: if you do a sin in private, keep it private between you and Allah and get help in private. Don't go out there publicizing it. Don't go out there sharing it.

We know of people who started sharing indecent things, indecent posts, backbiting posts, gossiping posts, haram posts, sexual posts, all sorts of things right on the post and then they died. They died in a car accident or

motorbike accident.

I know them personally and their posts are still up, shared around the world. You deactivate their social account, but other people have still got them, you know, their screenshots or their whatever they've posted.

Can you imagine what the Prophet ﷺ said that a person's actions cut off when they die, except for three things:

(Sahih Muslim)

"When a person dies, his actions cut off except for three things: an ongoing charity, an ongoing piece of knowledge that is beneficial, or a righteous child that will make dua for him." [Sahih Muslim]

But the opposite is true as well. If you left behind you an ongoing piece of harm and people copied that harm, then you will earn the sin of what you did and what you taught other people to do as well and it will just continue on and on and on.

Showing Off vs Sincerity

Posting stuff without knowledge on social media has also become a problem in the Muslim world in dawah as well. If you're not careful, it means it doesn't matter even if I post something good or bad. The point is I just want attention. I want to validate myself. I want myself to be more valuable.

Many criminals in the past such as Ned Kelly and others a lot of them, they kept robbing banks and loving that the police follow them and shoot at them and they shoot back and among their last words are very similar. They say: "I just let the world know my name. I am so-and-so. It doesn't matter what I'm known for good or bad. So long as I've got the attention, I'm popular, fame."

Social media can do that for you if you're not careful. And what happens is that it doesn't matter what I post or what I put. If people give me attention, I'm happy. I'm good.

That's called riya'. Riya' means to show acts of worship that are meant to be for Allah, but I'm really doing it for my ego, for my personal ego, so I can show off.

You say a beautiful statement about the deen, but your intention is wrong only to get the likes. I remember one person said to me, like they heard something from me. I said something, a sentence, and they said: "Oh my God, that sounds amazing. Say, say it again, say it again."

I said: "For what?"

"Just say it." I said: "Blah, blah, blah." They wrote it down. Post. It's not even their words.

Why'd you do that? "I sound so good."

Okay, okay. Make your intentions good. If you put it out there for the sake of Allah, go with it. But if you put it out there so that you can sound intelligent or whatever, then don't do it. Don't ruin yourself, even with religion. Don't use it like that.

Phantom Vibration Syndrome

My brothers and sisters in Islam, that syndrome I was talking about, it's called Phantom Vibration Syndrome. Strange names they bring.

Solutions to Social Media Addiction

My brothers and sisters in Islam, let's talk about some solutions.

There was one particular sister who came for help, and she was a heavy smoker. She was addicted to smoking cigarettes, and she couldn't stop.

So we met with her, and I said to her: "Look, how many smokes do you smoke a day?" And she said: "Well, roughly two packets." I said: "How many in a packet?" She said: "This many." And then I said: "Okay. So on average, you would be smoking every what? Five, ten minutes?" She goes: "Yes."

I said: "All right. For how long have you been like this?" "Oh, years, maybe ten years."

I said: "All right. How about we reduce it?" I remember the verse in the Quran that Sheikh Saleh mentioned.

Gradually get off the addiction.

Instead of every ten minutes, smoke every 20 minutes. I said: "Smoke every 20 minutes." I didn't say: "Stop smoking, it's haram, you're going to hellfire."

I said: "No, smoke every 20 minutes. She said: "Smoke?" I said: "Smoke every 20 minutes, but just make it so that means that you're going to have to be patient for 10 minutes. Can you be patient for 10 minutes?" "Yes."

"Okay, do that for a week. Then after that, increase the time gap between them. It became 25 minutes, 30 minutes. Do it for a while until you start detoxing off it."

Subhanallah, after one month, she was up to half a packet per day, which is an amazing success, amazing progress for her in specific.

Signs of Addiction

If social media you find yourself having this type of phantom vibration syndrome, you're starting to take the

phone with you to places where it shouldn't be, on the dinner table, at every time you eat, into the toilet, into the bathroom, right?

Signs of addiction:

1. If you cannot stay without your phone for five hours a day - these are all signs of your addiction

2. If you can't concentrate often, when you used to be able to concentrate longer - this could be a sign that you're addicted to social media

3. If you can't have a long conversation with your family and you feel that you got to go on your phone and talk to your family at the same time - this is a sign of addiction

4. If you're watching a movie and you can't watch it straight, you have to go on your phone - that's a sign of an addiction

5. If you can't make a time in the day where you look at your phone or two times or three times and stick to them - that is a sign of an addiction

6. If it's the first thing that you look at when you wake up in the morning (and I'm not talking about time or weather) - it's the first thing that you look at in the morning, social, Facebook, notification on Instagram, Snapchat - that's a sign of an addiction

7. If it's the last thing that you do before going to sleep - it is an addiction and it will make you actually live less longer

Now, you might be saying: "Sheikh Bilal, Allah says when you're going to die." Yeah, but you also have a go. You're going to die earlier because you went on social media so much. Now, Allah had written that, but it's proven.

When you go on the phone at night and that blue light goes into your eyes, you're not going to get good sleep. You're going to look older. You're not going to live a better, healthier life. You're going to wake up and go to school or work or whatever, not able to concentrate. Your skin, the color changes. The bags under the eye and ain't no filter going to change that.

Practical Solutions

My brothers and sisters, here are some solutions inshallah:

1. Gradually get off it - Make for yourself a time or times in the day where you say: "I will not carry my phone at all. At all. That's not impossible. I'm going to say from this time to this time, my phone's gone. I'm going to put it in the drawer. I'm not going to touch it."

2. Make phone-free zones - Make a place that you used to go to with your phone and say for the next week: "I'm not going to go into that place with my phone." See what happens.

3. Delete problematic friends/followers - Delete the friends or followers who keep giving you nonsense news feeds. Delete them. Delete friends who have bad images of themselves all the time. And I'm talking to both genders, sisters or brothers. You have those who keep posting the bad images, delete it.

4. Limit friends - Avoid trying to have too many friends. Limit to family, if you can, close family. At least that will help you.

5. Sleep on emotional posts - Make a commitment not to post something emotional until you sleep on it. Sleep to the next day. Because when we're emotional, we want to vent. We want to put it on to the straightaway.

And you know how many families are broken up because of that? How many people have bashed each other, stolen from each other, killed each other, suicide has happened, bullying has happened. Emotions.

Emotion is the most misleading thing about a human being. To use your desires and your emotions and how easy it is just go on. "I need to vent. First thing is do I post? I expose someone and then I feel good." And then suddenly all this harm starts coming to me. Divorces, family breakup, disconnection of ties.

And then I come and sit there: "They don't want to accept me. They have to accept me the way I am. My family doesn't love me."

And this is what causes depression, anxiety and stress.

Four Main Problems to Watch Out For

And this is probably very, very important. The most important thing I would say. There are four main problems in social media that experts tell us to watch out for:

1. The Highlight Reel

The first thing that you see from social media is something called the highlight reel. Highlights. People never post anything other than the best times or very rarely post anything but the best times of their life. They post it up. Everybody can smile for two seconds. You see that and you think I'm missing out.

What's this highlight reel? People give them likes. You want to also compete with that. Be careful and always know that the highlight reels don't even make up more than 30% of the person's real life. This is reliable studies.

And this is what causes marriages to break up as well and people not wanting to get married because what social media is doing is that it creates for the highlight reel higher expectations. You got to lower your expectation again to a marriage. You expect higher things. Just what you've seen on the internet on social media.

2. Your Currency

How much are you worth? Be very careful. You are worth to Allah more than anything in the world.

3. FOMO - Fear of Missing Out

I saw it in the paper before, it's called FOMO, fear of missing out.

What are you missing out on exactly? The next time that you look at it, think to yourself: Why am I looking at it? What am I actually missing out? For the past two years, what did I miss out on? Except harm and more depression and more stress.

4. Online Abuse or Harassment

Sexual harassment and the others. There is 40% of people who experienced sexual harassment on social media and 70% have witnessed it.

Closing

My brothers and sisters in Islam, Allah says:

"Allah wants to make clear to you and guide you to the ways of those before you and to turn to you in mercy. And Allah is Knowing and Wise." [Quran 4:26]

"Allah wants to accept your repentance, but those who follow their passions want you to digress into a great deviation." [Quran 4:27]

"Allah wants to lighten for you your difficulties; and mankind was created weak." [Quran 4:28]

Allah wants you to get closer to Him and He closer to you. He wants the relationship with you. And those who follow their desires and temptations, they want to lead you straight away.

Allah says: Your Lord wants to lessen the burden of you, mental, emotional, physical burdens off you.

Always remember, man is weak. Don't ever think that you can do it. Stick with the boundaries and you'll be strong enough inshallah, mentally stronger, mentally, emotionally and physically.

And he said:

(Sahih Muslim)

"The strong mu'min is better and more beloved to Allah than a weak mu'min." [Sahih Muslim]

References:

• Quran 57:20
• Quran 4:26
• Quran 4:27
• Quran 4:28
• Sunan Ibn Majah
• Sunan al-Tirmidhi
• Sahih Muslim

This document has been corrected and formatted according to all instructions provided. All Arabic text has been presented with proper harakat where available. All Quranic verses and Hadiths include proper references. The document is formatted cleanly for PDF export.

جَزَاكُمُ اللَّهُ خَيْرًا