Online or Offline?

Social media is blamed for all manner of things, be it the distraction of our youth all day long, the introduction of crazy trends and challenges internationally, the obsession with oneself, not being able to eat a meal before taking a picture and the duck pout.

In the Muslim social media world, we had the rise of mipsters and hijabi bloggers, which has allowed modest fashion to become a ‘thing’ and grow in popularity. It feels like to be ‘someone’ these days, you need to have an Instagram account with lots of followers, otherwise it’s almost as if you don’t exist and you don’t have a life worth parading online.

In the run-up to Ramadan, I considered a ‘social media detox’, consisting of deleting my app. However, due to the accounts that I run or help manage this wasn’t really an option, so I thought I’d hide my app way back in my phone so it’d be more of a chore to find. That was a fail!

I’m currently at the stage where I’m most comfortable, where I have a nice balance. I’ve limited my time on my apps to only productive access!

What does that mean?

1. I only access my app to post something beneficial
2. I’ve limited what/who I follow to pages that will benefit me in Ramadan (& after Ramadan) so that if they’re not benefitting my growth and development positively then I have no interest!
3. I make sure I read my Quran first, before accessing social media
4. I try my best not to look at the numbers and not feel affected by them
5. I post only beneficial and positive content
   

 

There is so much good on social media…if you search for it. Mashallah the content out there is so amazing that sometimes it can be overwhelming!

This Ramadan some of my friends on Instagram and I have decided to use our platforms to simplify Ramadan for ourselves. We try to create daily bitesize reflections as well as following an easy-to-use progress tracker to help us assess our daily progress and consider where we need to improve.

It’s up to us to use social media in the most beneficial way we can, to utilise what can be a source of all sorts of behaviours to our benefit. I truly believe, for myself anyway, that if we don’t use our platforms for good then Allah will ask us about it on the Day of Judgement. It’s the current language of our time and a tool that can help change things for the best, and we have seen it happen before our eyes, so let’s do what we can with it!

 

May Allah accept all our fasting, prayers and good deeds and use us for good!

 

Isra Ashi is a dentist by profession & mother. Has been working with the Youth team in Cardiff and helps run their Instagram pages @duiyouth_girls and @duiyouth as well as her own page @simply.israa. She also recently started to work in a team managing the new @maeenparenting Instagram page.