News Flash for Digest + Ignition

Ismaili Digest Has Left All Social Media. Here's why ...

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Update, August 31, 2019: We added former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya's eye opening comments, about social media, made at Stanford University. We also added Mawlana Hazar Imam's concerns about mobile technology from his 2014 Brown University speech.

As of September 1, 2019, Ismaili Digest will stop posting to all social media platforms. This major decision was, surprisingly, not as difficult as it seemed once we looked closely at the issue. Given admissions by top tech executives that they deliberately designed social media to be addictive (and don't use, nor allow their children to use, it), and given also the now virtually irrefutable, frightening psychological and social harm from social media (especially to children) we decided we could not, in good conscience, continue to use it at the expense of the Jamat's well-being. This newsflash details this and the many other reasons behind our decision. We hope the Jamat and other publishers find it useful in their own review of the value and harm of continuing to use or publishing to social media.

Although Facebook was our primary social media platform, as of September 1, 2019, Ismaili Digest will stop posting to all social media platforms. Continue to stay informed by Ismaili Digest, the most comprehensive source of Ismaili knowledge and news available, by subscribing to us by e-mail below.

This newsflash explains the reasons behind this major decision which, surprisingly, was not as difficult as it seemed once we looked closely at what was going on. We hope both the Jamat and other publishers find it useful in their own review of the value and harm of continuing to use or publishing to social media.

In brief, the primary reasons we have left social media are:
  1. Most of all the content Ismaili Digest pushes to social media is rarely seen so it provides no real value for either the Jamat, the publishers or us.
  2. What little value social media offers is far outweighed by its many serious disadvantages including negatively affecting meditation, ensnaring the Jamat in narrow echo chambers and harmful addictions.
  3. We found our e-mail subscribers are far better informed, over a wider range of subjects, than our social media followers.

For those interested, we cover each of these reasons in detail, in Parts 1 to 3, below and, at the end, we link to many articles we strongly recommend the Jamat reads.

In particular, we could not, in good conscience, continue to use social media at the expense of the Jamat's well-being given:

  • Social media executives admit they deliberately designed social media to be addictive. For example:

    Former Facebook executives on all social media: "[We] exploited a vulnerability in human psychology." "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains." "[My children] aren't allowed to use that shit."

    Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook said all social media companies consciously "exploited a vulnerability in human psychology." He also said "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

    Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook Vice President responsible for user growth, said "we want to psychologically figure out how to manipulate you as fast as possible and then give you back that dopamine hit. We did that brilliantly at Facebook, Instagram has done it, WhatsApp has done it, Snapchat has done it, Twitter has done it." He also said his children "aren't allowed to use that shit."

  • The now virtually irrefutable, frightening psychological and social harm, especially to children, social media brings with it.
  • Top Silicon Valley tech executives, who either design and develop social media and smartphone technologies (or understand them properly), are keeping their children away from them at all costs.

We know our leaving social media will probably cause no change among our followers, but we decided if they choose to continue to use social media, we did not want to be a factor in that decision.

We know our leaving social media will probably cause no change among our followers, but we decided if they choose to continue to use social media, we did not want to be a factor in that decision. Consider a drug dealer who decides to stop selling drugs. He knows his former customers will simply get their drugs from elsewhere, but he also knows he's now part of the solution and not part of the problem. Similarly, we want to be part of the solution rather than contribute to the problems social media unleashes.

Our social media followers may feel we should give them the choice to decide for themselves if they want to access Ismaili Digest via social media or not, however, social media's addictive potency has been compared to "crack cocaine" and "cigarettes," and no community makes drugs available rationalizing the decision with "let the community decide for themselves if they want to use them or not," leaving aside the issue of children.

Religious communities are particularly concerned, and we should be too. Here's why ...

However, as a faith-based community, in addition to the other problems with social media we outline below, one very serious concern, that was not obvious until we came across it, really stood out for us: the negative effects social media and smartphones have on meditation. This was pointed out by Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism, who wrote on his blog:

Common to many religions is an emphasis on contemplative practices -- turning one's focus inward in search of transcendent insight (what Karen Armstrong calls "intimations of the divine.").

I stumbled across a growing tension between social media and religion when checking media hits for my book Digital Minimalism. I discovered the amount of attention the book had started receiving in religious circles.

The issue that kept arising is the way in which [social media's] ubiquitous distraction corrodes the contemplative life. One of the consequences of an algorithmically-optimized, always-present source of attention-snagging noise is that the quiet mind [for contemplation] disappears. The religious are increasingly concerned with this.

-- Digital Minimalism and God (Or, is Social Media Undermining Religion?), 2019

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Why we left social media: Part 1 ...
Most content is rarely seen so it provides no real value for either the Jamat, the publishers or us

After reviewing our engagement statistics we noticed that, with the exception of 3 or 4 pieces a month that get 6 or more shares, in general, most of all this content, from all these Ismaili websites, is rarely seen by the social media audience.

Ismaili Digest aggregates content from over 30 institutional and independent Ismaili web publishers and each month publishes 250-300 direct links to articles and videos on those sites. After reviewing our engagement statistics and also monitoring real-time clicks, it was clear to us that Ismaili Digest's social media followers are far less well informed than our e-mail subscribers. The reason is because we noticed that, with the exception of 3 or 4 pieces a month that get 6 or more shares, in general, most of all this content, from all these Ismaili websites, is rarely seen by the social media audience, although there can be exceptions on an individual basis.

This is due to the many ways social media platforms control what they allow users to see and, according to Pew Research, 63% of Facebook users have not made any changes to configure which content appears on their feed and rely entirely on the social media platform to decide for them.

Social media recommendation algorithms restrict what you see

Most people engage with content on social media via their platform's feed. However, as is well known, these feeds are controlled by recommendation algorithms and the only content that shows up in your feed is what the social media platforms think you'll be interested in. Then they decide what order and priority to display it in further affecting what you'll see. So even if you specifically decide you want content from Ismaili Digest, or any other Ismaili website's Facebook page, for example, to show in your feed, and configure your feed options correctly, there is no guarantee the content will appear, and if it does, only a small selection will make it into your feed.

Sheer volume of social media feeds drowns out valuable information

As we all know, social media feeds are endless streams of posts by friends, pages you follow, groups you're a member of, and other content the platforms inject into the feed. One observer accurately described the Facebook Feed as "the Internet's suburban sprawl," a "digital wasteland, littered with ads and pointless content." Within minutes of posting, new content is buried and lost forever in a mind-numbing avalanche of new posts. So, unless you're watching your feed at the very time when a new post is published from Ismaili Digest, or other Ismaili pages you follow, you will probably never see it, assuming the recommendation algorithm even placed the post in your feed.

Facebook Notifications don't work as you think

You can turn on Facebook Notifications for important Facebook pages hoping you'll know whenever these pages post any new content and get you past the above two problems. However, if you've not configured and limited your alerts to only what's important, these quickly become overwhelming too. Furthermore, what is not widely known, is that Facebook only gives you 5 random alerts for new content posted to a Facebook page. So you'll still miss a lot of content -- especially from Ismaili Digest which regularly posts 5 to 10 articles and videos every day.

Why we left social media: Part 2 ...
What little value it offers is far outweighed by its many disadvantages

Social media executives admit they deliberately designed it to be addictive

Social media was specifically designed to be addictive and research shows they, and smartphones generally, increase social and psychological problems as well as decrease intellectual capacity. In addition, they were also designed to drain as much of your valuable time as possible, while giving you the illusion of being busy and productive.

Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, is worried enough that he's sounding the alarm. "The thought process that went into building these applications was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'"

Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, is worried enough that he's sounding the alarm. "It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." "The inventors, creators -- me, Mark [Zuckerberg], Kevin Systrom on Instagram, all of these people -- understood this consciously. And we did it anyway." "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

"And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you more likes and comments."

"It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

"It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." "The inventors, creators -- me, Mark [Zuckerberg], Kevin Systrom on Instagram, all of these people -- understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."

-- Facebook's founding President unloads on Facebook:
"God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains" (Axios), 2017

Consumer Internet businesses are about exploiting psychology, ... we want to psychologically figure out how to manipulate you as fast as possible and then give you back that dopamine hit. We did that brilliantly at Facebook, Instagram has done it, WhatsApp has done it, Snapchat has done it, Twitter has done it... WeChat is doing it. [Ed: Facebook now owns WhatsApp and Instagram] [03:05]

We want to psychologically figure out how to manipulate you as fast as possible and then give you back that dopamine hit. We did that brilliantly at Facebook, Instagram has done it, WhatsApp has done it, Snapchat has done it, Twitter has done it. [Ed: Facebook now owns WhatsApp and Instagram] ... The short-term dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created are destroying how society works.

It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. [04:23]

And I would encourage all of you as the future leaders of the world to really internalize how important this is. If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you. If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake from some of these tools and the things that you rely on. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works.... [04:35]

This is a global problem. So, we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other, and I don't have a good solution. My solution is I just don't use these tools anymore, I haven't for years. It's created huge tension with my friends, huge tensions in my social circles. If you look at my Facebook feed, I probably haven't, I've posted maybe two times in seven years. Three times, five times, it's less than ten. And it's weird, I guess I kind of just innately didn't want to get programmed, and so I just tuned it out.... [05:19]

If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you. If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake from some of these tools and the things that you rely on.

We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection, because we get rewarded in these short term signals, hearts, likes, thumbs up, and we conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth. And instead what is really is, is fake, brittle popularity. That's short term and that leaves you even more, and admit it, vacant and empty before you did it. Because then it forces you into this vicious cycle where you're like what's the next thing I need to do now, because I need it back. Think about that compounded by 2 billion people, and then think about how people react then to the perceptions of others. It's really bad, it's really, really bad. [07:00]

[Everybody] has to soul search a little bit more about what you're willing to do because your behaviours, you don't realize it but you are being programmed.... Now you gotta decide how much you're willing to give up, how much of your intellectual independence, and don't think, yeah, not me, I'm a genius, I'm at Stanford. You're probably the most likely to fall for it. [08:24]

You don't realize it but you are being programmed. You gotta decide how much you're willing to give up, how much of your intellectual independence, and don't think, not me, I'm a genius, I'm at Stanford. You're probably the most likely to fall for it. Start by turning off your social apps and giving your brain a break.

Start by turning off your social apps and giving your brain a break, because then you will at least be a little bit more motivated, to not be motivated by what everybody else thinks about you. Do you know what I'm saying? It's hard, think about how all this stuff plays together.... [09:04]

This is wiring your brain for super-fast feedback. It's the same brain you're using to build a company. Don't think they're not the same.... You have one brain! So you're training your brain here [with social media], whether you think it or not, whether you know it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not. Acknowledge that these things, where you're spending hours a day, are rewiring your psychology and physiology. In a way, that now you have to use to go and figure out how to be productive in the commercial world. So if you don't change this, you are going to get the same behaviour as over here [in the real world]. Change this. [09:27]

There's a reason why Steve Jobs was anti-social media. I am telling you, I'm not on these apps.

There's a reason why Steve Jobs was anti-social media. I am telling you, I'm not on these apps, I'm not him by any stretch of the imagination. But I am proactively trying to rewire my brain chemistry to not be short term focused. I'm telling you they're linked. [10:09]

-- Chamath Palihapitiya, former Facebook executive speaking at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 2017

The illusion of productivity. Study after study has shown that all social media tools are designed to be addictive, thanks to variable rewards, and an endless fire hose of information and dopamine hits. But the hidden danger is the false sense of productivity we get from using these tools. It feels as if we're getting something done, even when we're not. I can't tell you the number of times that I've been with my family over the last few years, claiming that I had "work to do," even though I just was posting stuff on Facebook.

-- The Hidden Dangers of Confusing Attention with Accomplishment, 2018

Top technology executives know the problems and keep their children away from social media and smartphones

Technology executives, like Bill Gates, his wife, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook (C.E.O of Apple), and many others whose firms create these technologies, are well aware of the serious harmful psychological and social effects of social media and smartphones, especially on children, and "have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them."

Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads.

Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don't want their own children anywhere near them. The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high.

Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads.

"Doing no screen time is almost easier than doing a little," said Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer. "If my kids do get it at all, they just want it more." Ms. Stecher, 37, and her husband, Rushabh Doshi, researched screen time and came to a simple conclusion: they wanted almost none of it in their house.

"On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it's closer to crack cocaine," Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired and now the chief executive of a robotics and drone company, said of screens. "We thought we could control it," Mr. Anderson said. "And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand."

He has five children and 12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. "I didn't know what we were doing to their brains until I started to observe the symptoms and the consequences," Mr. Anderson said.

-- A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley (New York Times), 2018

I can control my decisions, which is I don't use this shit. I can control my kids' decisions, which is they're not allowed to use this shit. [08:07]

-- Chamath Palihapitiya, former Facebook executive speaking at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 2017

Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation [the iGens] are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet. The Millennials grew up with the web as well, but it wasn't ever-present in their lives, at hand at all times, day and night. iGen's oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010.

But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we've not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we've placed in young people's hands are having profound effects on their lives -- and making them seriously unhappy.

But the twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we've not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we've placed in young people's hands are having profound effects on their lives -- and making them seriously unhappy. These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns.

Psychologically, however, [iGens] are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It's not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.

You might expect that teens spend so much time in these new spaces because it makes them happy, but most data suggest that it does not. The results [from The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse] could not be clearer: There's not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness.

I've been researching generational differences for 25 years. Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data -- some reaching back to the 1930s -- I had never seen anything like it.

-- Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (The Atlantic), 2017

Echo chambers and filter bubbles

The way social media recommendation algorithms are designed, they create an echo chamber around you, limiting what information you see and are exposed to. Furthermore, we noticed that Facebook's recommendation algorithms mainly amplify superficial material at the expense of more valuable, useful and interesting knowledge.

Social media recommendation algorithms create an echo chamber around you, limiting what information you see and are exposed to. Furthermore, we noticed that FaceBook's recommendation algorithms mainly amplify superficial material at the expense of more valuable, useful and interesting knowledge.

Their rules monitor what content you or your friends have engaged with (liked, commented, shared, clicked on, etc.) in the past and push more of that content into your feed. This feedback loop quickly degenerates into echo chamber. So even if Ismaili Digest's content (or content from other pages you follow) does actually appear in your feed, it will just be more of what you and your friends have seen before. And research shows the more accurately the recommendation algorithm determines what you like, the faster your feed will degenerate into an echo chamber.

For example, if you regularly like, share or comment on posts with Hazar Imam's photograph or name, more and more posts with Hazar Imam's photo or name will start showing up in your feeds, drowning out other information you may be interested in but are unaware of. Those same posts will also start appearing more and more in your friends' feeds, and vice versa, fuelling the echo-chamber feedback loop.

What if recommendation engines are training you to only like what's familiar? They decide what you're exposed to, and base that on what they already know about you. You can pick out what you like about what they offer you, but at the end of the day, it's going to be something familiar, and something that was picked for you. At that point, are you really in control of what you see, or is it in control of you? Or did I just blow your mind?

-- How Recommendation Engines Are Reaffirming Your Worldview
(And Leaving You Stuck In Your Own Bubble), 2018

Mawlana Hazar Imam has outright rejected any form of homogenization in society -- intellectual, cultural, religious, etc. -- and, in fact, said such efforts should be actively resisted.

As a community, we value pluralism, including intellectual pluralism, intellectual diversity. However, social media recommendation algorithms are specifically designed to reduce intellectual pluralism and homogenize your intellectual landscape by controlling and limiting your exposure to new information, ideas or perspectives, published by Ismaili (or other) websites that might otherwise interest you.

Mawlana Hazar Imam has outright rejected any form of homogenization in society -- intellectual, cultural, religious, etc. -- and, in fact, said such efforts should be actively resisted:

Those groups that seek to standardise, homogenise, or if you will allow me, to normatise all that and those around them must be actively resisted through countervailing activities. (2002, The Netherlands)

Why would homogenisation be such a danger? Because diversity and variety constitute one of the most beautiful gifts of the Creator, and because a deep commitment to our own particularity is part of what it means to be human. (2008, USA)

The beauty of Creation is a function of its variety. A fully homogenised world would be far less attractive and interesting. (2008, Bangladesh)

Even worse, the echo chamber creates a false impression of the community to the Jamat, as if it only publishes certain type of content -- the superficial type that Facebook and other social media platforms think you're interested in -- which, over the long term, undermines the Jamat from the inside.

Generally, people don't read the deeper, more important, more challenging material as often as the light, more entertaining, more superficial material, and recommendation algorithms ensure that, over time, you'll rarely see any of it. Meanwhile, recommendation algorithms are constantly amplifying your exposure to superficial material which creates, and then reinforces, a false impression that the community only publishes superficial, entertaining material. In other words, the more the community uses social media, the more we, ourselves, cement this false idea about our own community.

Mawlana Hazar Imam sounded the alarm 5 years ago

Five years ago, in 2014, at Brown University, Hazar Imam sounded the alarm on these issues -- information bubbles, homogeneous echo chambers as well as the social and societal problems -- that arise from mobile technologies. He said:

Among the risks of our new communications world is its potential contribution to what I would call the growing "centrifugal forces" in our time -- the forces of "fragmentation." ... Yes, the Information Revolution, for individuals and for communities, can be a great liberating influence. But it also carries some important risks.

Communicating more often and more easily can bring people closer together, but it can also tempt us to live more of our lives inside smaller information bubbles, in more intense but often more isolated groupings. We see more people everywhere these days, standing or sitting or walking alone, absorbed in their hand-held screens. But, I wonder whether, in some larger sense, they are really more "in touch?"

More information at our fingertips can mean more knowledge and understanding. But it can also mean more fleeting attention-spans, more impulsive judgements, and more dependence on superficial snapshots of events.

Communicating more often and more easily can bring people closer together, but it can also tempt us to live more of our lives inside smaller information bubbles, in more intense but often more isolated groupings. We see more people everywhere these days, standing or sitting or walking alone, absorbed in their hand-held screens. But, I wonder whether, in some larger sense, they are really more "in touch?" Greater "connectivity" does not necessarily mean greater "connection."

Information travels more quickly, in greater quantities these days. But the incalculable multiplication of information can also mean more error, more exaggeration, more misinformation, more disinformation, more propaganda. The world may be right there on our laptops, but the truth about the world may be further and further away.

The problem of fragmentation in our world is not a problem of diversity. Diversity itself should be a source of enrichment. The problem comes when diverse elements spin off on their own, when the bonds that connect us across our diversities begin to weaken.

-- Mawlana Hazar Imam, 2014, Brown University, USA

Likes, hearts, shares, comments

Compounding the problems, created by recommendation algorithms, is a subtle problem most don't notice: all the likes, hearts, comments and other feedback on posts further influence what articles you'll read. The more the likes a piece has, the more likely you'll read it.

One popular blogger explained the problem well:

Besides resenting the fact that an automated computer program was shaping what I paid attention to ... I started to sour on another facet of consuming content from social media: the social aspect.

Before I clicked on a link from Facebook to an article that looked interesting to me, comments from a bunch of internet randos jumped out from the screen, offering an often ill-informed hot take, that, 9 times out of 10, was based entirely on the headline; they hadn't actually read the piece. Same thing on Twitter. I was confronted with other people's opinions about an article, before I had the chance to read it and form my own.

Besides the comments, there are those other little signals on social media that can end up skewing what you think of something: likes, RTs, faves, hearts. And come to find out, a lot of these "one-bit indicators" (as Digital Minimalism author Cal Newport calls them) are coming from bots. Not from actual people. A lot of social media is fake. Hype.

-- Escape the Algorithm!, 2019

So instead of deciding for yourself what to read, you're being pushed from every side, overtly and covertly, to read what algorithms or others have decided is worth reading.

Why we left social media: Part 3 ...
Our e-mail subscribers are far better informed, over a wider range of subjects, than our social media followers

When we reviewed our statistics, we noticed that the variety and amount of material read by our e-mail subscribers was wider than what was read by our Facebook followers for several reasons:

  • The content our e-mail subscribers see is not controlled by recommendation algorithms and they see all the content published by all the Ismaili websites we monitor. What they or their friends had read, liked or shared previously was irrelevant. They are not trapped in an echo chamber and free to decide what interests them, rather than having it decided for them. And, when given control and choice, they choose variety.
  • They choose to read what interests them by thinking for themselves uninfluenced by other people's opinions through likes, hearts, shares, comments, etc. They have no idea what others are reading.

    • Essentially, our e-mail subscribers are reading a magazine. When you read a magazine, you choose what to read by yourself, for yourself, whenever you decide to pick up the magazine. There are no likes, hearts, comments, etc. from other readers influencing your choices nor are your given just a small selection of articles from the magazine to choose from. And, when given control and choice, they choose variety.

  • All the content is readily available for them to review, at a time they choose (like a coffee break), all at once, in one e-mail in their inboxes. It doesn't instantly disappear in an avalanche of mind-numbing new posts generated by the Facebook feed. And so they just end up reading more too.
  • Our daily e-mail newsletter subscribers have an additional benefit social media followers don't have. When fewer than 10 articles or videos are published by the Ismaili websites we monitor, we add additional timeless material, randomly selected from their archives, to the end of the daily newsletter. This exposes them to articles and other material that may not have seen but which is just as valuable today as when first published.

Essentially, our e-mail subscribers are reading a magazine. When you read a magazine, you choose what to read by yourself, for yourself, whenever you decide to pick up the magazine. There are no likes, hearts, comments, etc. from other readers influencing your choices nor are you given just a small selection of articles from the magazine to choose from.

Recommended reading

We have posted many articles on all these issues in Ismaili Digest's Off The Beaten Track section (here and here), some of which we have highlighted below. We strongly recommend the Jamat read at least one or two from each of the categories below to appreciate how much harm social media is causing to you and your children.

Brain, psychological and social impacts: addiction, multi-tasking and depression
Lost time: The consequences
Echo chambers and filter bubbles
Cutting back: Digital Minimalism
Spiritual impacts