The Doom Feels Real. But So Is the Hope.

Today posts intrigued me. As a parent and an educator, I’ve walked the tightrope of watching my own behaviour as a parent as well as others.

And I realise we often are battling with time shared with devices, noise, and overstimulation. Its our expression of need for connection. So Yes,

Human beings are biologically primed to seek connection. So that hardwired so it aren’t going anywhere.
And Children; even the most distracted, disconnected, disillusioned ones – are seeking it every single day.

But here’s the catch:
They don’t always know how to. So their bids for connection come in strange, subtle, often chaotic forms.

A child who throws a tantrum when the screen is taken away isn’t “addicted” to the device—they’re desperate to fill an inner void. A void that longs to be seen. So I am thinking aloud here

what if, instead of complaining or commanding “Put your phone away” a zillionth reminder in a day;

…we paused, took a breath, and softly say,
“Hey, what are you looking for in there?”
“Is something interesting?”
“Want to tell me about it, it must be something interesting?”

What if we saw the phone not as the enemy—
but as a doorway into their inner world?

A bridge to connection, not just a barrier to it.

Because often, they’re not just scrolling.
They’re soothing.
They’re escaping.
They’re searching—for meaning, belonging, or simply for something that feels safe.

And maybe, just maybe, when we respond with curiosity instead of control,
we remind them that what they’re truly seeking isn’t inside that screen—
It’s in the presence of someone who’s willing to listen without judgment.

That’s when disconnection may become dialogue.
That’s when boundaries may become bonding.

And that’s when the phone slowly slips away—
Not because we forced it out of their hand,
But because we filled the space it was trying to occupy.

Perhaps its us, the real humans in their lives, are too distracted, too stressed, or too depleted to respond to their subtle cues.

And I say this with deep compassion—because I, too, have missed those cues a zillion times.

I’ve missed them in my daughter’s sudden silences.
In her slammed doors after she has said “Mom you never understand” or “Leave me alone”

The truth is—social media may have captured their attention.
But only our presence can capture their hearts.

We don’t need to fix everything. We just need to see the hope hidden in their anger, sarcastic tone and their whine as flags not as broken people.

And can we open the door dispite the anger, sarcastic tone and their whine.

This Ramadan as the month of the fasting is closing, we can take away from what the Quran reminds us in the Surah Ar-Ra’d 13:11, “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves,”

We have hope and we can become the safe place they’ve been searching to be filled with social media.

We can never fight cancer we can only befriend it as it comes to remind us how far we have come from our authentic selves.

The Doom Feels Real. But So Is the Hope.