More than thirty years ago, in his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, author and media theorist Neil Postman warned us how the advent of television and the related paradigm shift from the printed word towards visual content has lead to a decline in serious public discourse and resulted in a population distracted by trivialities. This was before the age of the internet.
Drawing on Aldous Huxley’s futuristic novel “Brave New World”, Postman cautioned us: “In the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate.” In other words, both Postman and Huxley could foresee how we will willingly allow technologies to unravel our abilities to think deeply and connect with ourselves. In fact, were these social critics alive today, they would be alarmed by the way digital media has significantly contributed to what they had predicted.
For many of us, opening up our smartphones, tablets or laptops several times a day to browse the internet is a way of life. Internet trends compiled by Kleiner Perkins show that in the United States, people spend more than seven hours looking at screens. While television viewership has been declining, there has been a significant increase in time spent watching videos each day. Entertainment company Netflix has seen exponential growth of more than 600% in the last five years. Digital entertainment has become such a central feature that it is not uncommon to find a separate media room or home theater for a cinema experience at home in modern American homes.
The smartphone behaviour of millennials shows that they are inseparable from their mobiles. Eighty percent say they reach for their smartphones first thing in the morning, and 87% say it never leaves their side. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter are the top favourite social media platforms for young people. Global interactive gaming is another emerging trend. These trends and figures do not surprise us. With increasing access to digital devices and internet user growth, in Pakistan we see very similar trends all around us.
We can all list the ways in which our personal, social and professional lives have been enhanced since the advent of the digital age, adding ease, accessibility, flexibility, expressiveness and so forth. But we are only beginning to understand the dark side of the digital age: online crimes, pornography, human trafficking, violent images, online abuse, and hate speech to name a few. To understand the scale, take the example of child pornography. On only a single server, American law enforcement found 42 million child pornography images. Tomi Grover, human trafficking educator, warns that parents often don’t realize that online platforms like Facebook and Instagram provide human trafficker’s access to their children and their activities.
Yet there is another area of concern that we hardly recognize and rarely talk about: how digital media, especially visual images, interact with our soul and psyche. Even a cursory glance at our interactions with digital media reveals that visual content dominates the textual. From digital marketing to entertainment, news, social media, gaming, infographics and even blogs, visuals are either at the centre of the contents or, at the minimum, provide a supporting function. How many of us have given a serious thought to what those images do to our inner selves? The rest of this article will highlight some important psychological and spiritual effects of visual media that go unnoticed. I will also discuss ways of resisting and protecting ourselves from it as well as highlight some alternative choices we have.
Digital Images and the Human Psyche
I find it instructive that some forms of visual imagery are already highly discouraged in the Islamic tradition. Islam prohibits making images of animate objects. Interestingly, you also find a prohibition on ‘graven images’ in the Bible (see exodus 20:4), second of the Ten Commandments. Moreover, we already know, how Iblis (Satan) promised Allah (swt) that he will systematically mislead humankind by coming to them from all four sides, ambushing them on Allah’s (swt) straight path (Al-Araf 7:16-17). With digital media as a core medium of modern communication and dissemination of information and ideas, we should be deeply concerned about its possible negative influences for our minds, hearts and soul. Below are some aspects that often remain off our radars.
Protecting the Fitrah
Allah (swt) has gifted all human beings with a Fitrah, a natural upright disposition. Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan, founder and lead instructor at Bayyinah Institute, notes that this “Fitrah of all human beings is under attack by a conglomerate of multiple, muti-billion-dollar interests”. He cites the example of the pornography industry, whose revenues exceed those of the IT sector. He reminds us that while we worry about environmental pollution, we are not serious enough about spiritual contamination.
Surveys suggest children are being exposed to toxic sexual imagery at increasingly younger ages. We recognize that quite a lot of the visual imagery in the entertainment industry is outside the moral boundaries of our Deen. Yet, there is a lack of urgency in guarding ourselves and our next generation from immoral, suggestive images, which attack and destroy our natural inner light.
Emotive Contents and Unconscious Processing
We presume, unless explicitly graphic, the visual images we see on our devices are neutral and harmless. But the images we see carry emotive content. They seek to gain our attention by arousing our curiosity, presenting a challenge, or touching our deepest fears, hopes and longings. Many of these images are so enticing precisely because they are designed by experts in the industry who understand us and our needs very well. They are designed to evoke certain emotional responses, tell a story and subtly influence the perception of the viewer.
Moreover, compared to text, the brain processes visual images much faster. Text demands conscious processing, while visual content has a much more immediate impact, a great part of which can be unconscious, that is, below the level of our conscious thought. Dr. Mark Damien Delp, who has looked deeply into the effects of visual imagery on our inner life, helps us understand what that could mean:
“There is so much stimuli, so much data coming in on some of these images that we don’t catch a fraction of it. Once it gets in, it continues to move, usually unnoticed in our imaginations, and in our imaginations it settles in our memories and it becomes the grist for contemplation, good or bad.”
Thus the images we are exposed to are transforming our psyche. This is of crucial concern, as eventually these influences on our inner states will reflect on our outer condition and the choices we make.
Some Insights from Neuroscience and Psychological Research
Activation of the brain’s emotional processing regions: A literature review of neuroscience articles revealed that watching images can directly impact brains emotion processing centres. Negative, fear inducing images activated the amygdala, key brain region for processing anxiety, fear and pain. When exposed to highly novel or unfamiliar images, the brain struggles to provide a context, and this can be anxiety producing. Expressions of fear on faces can generate a fear response in the viewer. Interestingly, the amygdala was more active when viewing sharp objects compared to curved ones (for example, a sofa with sharp contours versus one with curved contours).
Physiological stress response: A fear/ anxiety response in the brain induced by visual images can activate a stress response in the body, including an increased heart rate and blood pressure. Such calming images as natural scenes, on the other hand, have a restorative effect on mind and body.
Impact of electronic media violence: Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, a Professor of Communication Studies and Psychology, reviewing the impact of violent media concludes: “Media violence increases the risk significantly that a viewer or game player will behave more violently in the short run and in the long run.” Repeated exposure to violent media can lead to emotional arousal, observational learning and desensitization to violence, all of which contribute to acts of violence. School shootings in the USA are a product of this.
Fake Idols and a Disconnectedness from Our Own Humanity
Millennials and young adults, who have grown up in a world surrounded by digital media, have had their very lives and thinking shaped by what they are exposed to via these media. A student from an Islamic school in the US explained to me that celebrities and the music industry were constantly in their lives. When anything related to them happened, most of the school was updated. This influence was then sometimes reflected in their own online activities. Talking about Snapchat and Facebook users she commented, “They all are putting out their lives and they want everyone to see their lives similar to celebrities’.”
What these celebrity images sell to our young minds are not the things that help them flourish as humans. False images and fake adoration are doing a lot of harm by disconnecting us from our own selves. “We present an idealized image of ourselves and, therefore, hide other parts of ourselves, which are less admirable to other people,” explains Dr Michael Sinclair, a Counselling Psychologist. He warns there is a risk to that, “because as we hide pain and suffering, which is inevitable in our lives, we kind of lose touch with human connectedness, the opportunity to empathize with our full human experience”.
Living in a Virtual World Rather Than the Real World
The digital world and the cultural paradigm it supports is a formidable presence in our lives that is difficult to resist and which many people consider a reliable guide to the world. We are increasingly living in a world of our own imaginations, in a fictitious place, instead of the real one. In a recent example, Republican voters in the United States supported bombing the fictional city of Agrabah, from the tale of Aladdin, confusing it for a real city in the Middle East.
This disconnectedness from reality is affecting our ability to think and engage with the world on a deeper spiritual level. Allah (swt) reminds us: “Have they not travelled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breast that go blind.” (Al-Hajj 22:46)
Fragmented Messages
The digital world presents us with multitudinous still and moving visuals, texts and sounds, which lack a continuity of narrative. We are bombarded with a stream of messages that are distracting, intrinsically unrelated, impersonal and often irrelevant to our lives. The news of a genocide could be followed by an ad of a new clothing line, followed by a clip of cute baby pandas. They quickly catch our attention and then are forgotten with equal ease. Add to that the endless ads, pop-ups, banners and notifications that clutter our screens. Confused and overwhelmed, our minds go numb.
Moreover, as we consume these fragmented, restless, discontinuous images, and as they reach our inner selves, they disturb the inner stillness and tranquility of our souls. This is a matter of grave concern for people of faith, for they recognize that their strength lies in inner peace, in having a Qalb-e-Saleem.
Preserving our Moral and Intellectual Faculties
We cannot completely disengage from the digital world, but we can become more self-aware of the harm and consciously take our lives back into our own hands. We can make viewing choices that serve us best, and protect our thinking and spiritual capacities we need to develop a strategic response. Below I provide some practice advice.
- Self-awareness and more mindful online behaviour. The starting point is to become aware of the influence digital media and visual imagery has on your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Monitor your time spent online and be sensitive to how much influence you are taking in. Limit your screen time based on your needs, develop new online habits that allow you access to useful information with minimum distraction and spiritual harm. Develop mental discipline to walk away from meaningless distractions, no matter how intriguing.
- Seek tranquility in nature. Our minds and souls seek tranquility. Disengage frequently from the fragmented world of digital visuals to reconnect with the world of natural images. Some experiences can only be obtained away from the screen. Deliberately seek time in nature. Instead of viewing nature as Facebook opportunities, let your eyes soak in the vastness of the sky, let your soul feel the wholeness of nature. Remember we are reminded again and again in the Quran to reflect on the heavens and the earth.
- Switch from passive viewing to active engagement. Take out time daily to read something useful. Instead of being passive recipients of digital media, engage your mind in reading. If you are reading online, make sure to use ad-blocks and other software to clear up the screen from distracting clutter. Text demands the reader to participate actively in a conversation started by the author, connect ideas, build mental images, reflect and respond. As Muslims, we belong to a rich tradition of the written word, which traces back to the first revelation, the first command of “Iqra” (read; recite). It is essential we go back to these roots to protect and develop our critical faculties.
- Seek presence in human interactions. While there have been numerous benefits of social media in terms of staying connected and updated, I strongly believe we are losing the art of enjoying each other’s presence. Emoticons, likes and favourites, envy-inducing photos, quotes and the like cannot replace a presence-filled interaction in the real world. Put away your smartphones and relearn how to make interesting face-to-face conversations. Make sure to give genuine time and attention to the people who care for you and need you. Replace digital images with meaningful memories of time spent together.
- Limit your gaze. Allah (swt) commands both the believing men and believing women to lower their gaze in Surah An-Noor (24:30-31). This extends also to the digital world, and the visual images we come across daily, as we go about our day. In a time, when images are everywhere – from billboards to magazines, shops, television and digital devices – the only way to block them and limit their influence is to restrict our vision. Take responsibility for what your eyes are taking in and feeding your mind and soul.
- Educate yourself and your children. Educate yourself and family about the Islamic perspective on life, the purpose of our existence and our value system. This foundation will help you and your children acquire a more discerning attitude regarding modern media and culture, such as the awareness of ideological biases.
- Protective supplications and being conscious of Allah (swt). Develop a habit of being conscious of Allah (swt), when browsing the web, especially in solitude. Lastly, never underestimate the power of protective morning and evening prayers. Ibn al-Qayyim explained: “The morning and evening Adhkar play the role of a shield; the thicker it is, the more its owner will not be affected.”
A raised level of awareness about the influence of digital media on our psyche is an opportunity to develop new habits that help us anchor ourselves back in our humanity and our Deen, instead of staying adrift in a sea of diversions. Be selective in what you allow to engage with your heart and intellect. Your soul (Nafs/ Ruh), your inner core that defines you and connects you to the Creator, is too valuable to be left unguarded and unnourished.
About author
