Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Our small screens have become our big prisons

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Maeen al Shuaili  -


Through the constant developments in the world and the vast improvement in technology, this world has gotten smaller that everything is now in our hands.


In a series of events from around the world, the small screens become our windows allowing us to be part of them and as it captivates our attention, it becomes our big prison.


While interacting with one another has been quickened, it’s all the more minimized and to different than the world as we are forced to stare at the other person on their face.


Our feelings have been reduced to just one small message, our fatherhood in a simple tweet and our motherhood on a clip not exceeding more than ten seconds.


We cook the food not just for the sake of eating, but rather to “act for the cameras”.


We give importance to recording the moments more than living them.


There are many portable and available books, but we do not read them. We depend on device memories more than our brain memory.


Holding and depending on our devices, we do not care about our children most of the time, so they are in search of others to chat, listen and play with.


Being confused by many things in real life, we lose our selves in these small screens. All of this has resulted in many loopholes in our social interaction among family and friends.


It goes without saying that we cannot live life in the absence of these devices.


Studies confirmed that these devices have been taking over our lives. Approximately, 27 hours of video feed are downloaded on YouTube each minute. In addition, there are about 277, 000 tweets on twitter and about 347, 000 photos shared via WhatsApp.


All of these happen in one minute in a day, so just imagine the number in 24 hours.


Social media users spend about 20 minutes of their working hours losing themselves into those small screens which means more than a third of their time is wasted. A Baylor University research showed that social media, especially Facebook spread hatred between the different categories of the society due to the fact that people spread many videos and images including inappropriate content.


However, it doesn’t mean that we are at the end and that nothing can be done about it. We can be better by living a real life in which we feel the bonds between each other. We can rebuild strong social connections and try to build strong relations among family members. It is never too late for us to launch a new beginning where we can give enough time to our friends, families, work and ourselves.


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