A Faith Based Guide to Navigating the Social Media Lifestyle
“The internet is a reflection of our society and that mirror is going to be reflecting what we see. If we do not like what we see in that mirror the problem is not to fix the mirror, we have to fix society.” Vint Cerf, one of the ‘fathers of the internet’ It’s happened to pretty much everyone. You come …
Written at the commencement of Ramadan 2014 When I was somewhere around 12 years old, my family would go celebrate ‘Chaand Raat’ at a local Desi restaurant. For those of you who are unfamiliar, chaand raat (literally ‘moon night’) is basically partying it up the night before Ramadan starts. It was my designated duty to go to the payphone every …
Everyone has had that night. It’s been a long day. You didn’t get much sleep. Some crazy driver cut you off on the way home. You’re behind on all your work. There’s family stress and financial stress. Prayer was supposed to be a refuge but you just rushed and got it over with. In short, life is hard. You’re grinding, …
Seeing a dolphin jump out of the water is amazing to see in real life. It’s why thousands of families flock to places like Sea World. It’s why I took my kids to Sea World as well. As we settled in to watch the show, I looked around and realized something. The kids in the crowd were all sitting in …
Growing up in Texas, summers as a kid were unbelievably hot. One of my kids recently asked me, “Why did Allah make Texas so hot?” I told them not even the greatest country in the world can be completely perfect. I remember reading a book, and the kids in there were arguing over who got to sit near the window. …
panem et circenses iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses. -Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81 This poem was penned by a satirical Roman poet in the 1st/2nd Century AD. It translates to: Already long ago, from when we sold our …
“Just as every technology is an invitation to enhance some part of our lives, it’s also, necessarily, an invitation to be drawn away from something else.” – Michael Harris, The End of Absence. A Typical Day It’s 30 minutes before fajr time ends. The alarm on your smartphone starts blaring. You reach over and try to swipe the screen but end up smacking …
Once, while in college, I was hanging out with some friends in the Masjid lobby. An uncle sat down and started talking to us. After a brief moment of silence, he dropped something on me that has stuck with me for life. And that’s hard to do by the way, figuring out what makes an idea stick is a holy …
Does Social Media Really Cause Divorce? Facebook is more commonly being listed as a cause of divorce. But is social media really the culprit? Social media is a tool, and a magnifying lens. To answer the question it is important to understand how social media impacts marriages. Married couples have had problems and issues since the beginning of time. It …
I’m not eating till Instagram gets fixed! How am I suppose to enjoy a meal if I can’t get likes on it?! — Tiara Bella (@TIARABELLAAA) April 12, 2014
FOMO [Fear of Missing Out] has been one of my biggest ailments in using not just social media – but technology in general. I have to read every single email. When they shut down Google Reader, I spent days figuring out which RSS reader to use – and then another day subscribing to all the blogs I wanted to follow. Taking …