The Farman with blessings to the youth is both timely and deeply relevant to all of us, including parents and grandparents. It focuses on how technology, social media, and AI can be used for benefit, but also how they can become dangerous when misused or consumed without reflection.
The guidance in the Farman emphasizes:
• Critical thinking and questioning of what we see online.
• Staying true to our faith and values when engaging on digital platforms.
• Avoiding excessive screen time, which can damage health, confidence, and social skills.
• Prioritising real human interaction — with family, friends, schoolmates, colleagues, and Jamat — as a source of happiness, belonging, and vitality.
• Engaging in sports, community life, and physical activity to maintain mental and physical well-being.
This testimony is especially meaningful for our youth, but it carries lessons for all generations. It reminds us that while technology can connect, teach, and empower, it must never replace the blessings of in-person human interaction and the ethics of our faith.
Please see the full extract attached below.
“ *Please read this extract, important for us, our children and to those who have grand children.
*Youth Mulagat – Kampala, Teanda, 12 September
Alongside technology, social media, the internet and Artificial Intelligence have changed what and how we learn about the world, and how we perceive and interact with each other. At their best, these advances can improve our lives. They can teach us, they can inform us, connect us around the world.
But when the gatekeepers with malicious intent use these platforms to disinform, or to control content, to catalyse hate, they become a tool of control and addiction. To protect yourselves, apply your critical thinking and reasoning skills rigorously. Avoid consuming social media, or indeed any information, indiscriminately. Question what you consume.
Who, what and why are you seeing what you are seeing on your screens? These are questions you have to ask: Is it true? Can I go to the source? These are questions you have to ask. In this way, you will use these media tools for benefit, rather than being controlled by them.
Remember that social media can be divisive or it can bring people together. Social media can be supportive and informative, or it can be used to misinform, disinform, bully and harass. Only contribute to online platforms judiciously — with care and thought — or not at all. And if you engage on social media, stay true to the values and ethics of our faith.
Finally on this matter, I want to say that excessive screen time can have a detrimental impact on mental and physical health in ways that we do not yet fully understand. It comes at the expense of real social human interaction. A life lived on screens can create a cycle of isolation and loneliness. It can damage self-confidence and erode interpersonal social skills. This is not what I would wish upon you or, indeed, upon my own sons.
In-person interactions with family and friends and school or work colleagues develop social skills and create a sense of belonging. This is another thing that we have in our community that we need to protect — getting together physically, talking to friends, talking to our neighbours — this is something that we must preserve.
Meet your friends, engage in sports, in your local community or with members of the Jamat. Get out and play, meet, chat. Get away from your screens and desks and move your bodies, invigorate your minds, and experience the world outside of your screens. This will energise you and those around you. It will make you happy and vibrant, healthy and vigorous.
And this makes me very happy.