I have written about social media before and how the changing
dynamics of etiquette irks me. Yet here I am again, writing about it. Why, you
ask. Its getting worse. Our greed for shortcuts has compromised the quality of
communication greatly. From bad grammar to acronyms to emoticons to plain bad
etiquette. The art of communication is fast becoming lost on us.
The “e”-dynamic
I recently attended a presentation about communication and
it placed great importance on the mindset of the “receiver”, in getting across
the correct message. The technology today, although facilitates communication
yet it has presented us with a complex challenge of “connecting” with the
audience.
Consider this: You write an email/text message, Come out!
Now you were excited about something and wanted the receiver to come out right
away to share the excitement. The receiver on the other hand, had a stressful
day at work and reads this and thinks,
Oh great! Now she is mad too! She hastily types back “what’s your
problem?” You can pretty much guess how this goes.
Texting has “text” and punctuation only helps so much
however the sender should be careful to communicate their emotions clearly – if
the text is emotional. If however, its a business email/text, then it should as
void of emotion as McDonalds is of nutrition (ouch!). WARNING: Void of emotion
does not mean void of akhlaq (etiquette).
The Quran teaches us the art of letter-writing for when Moosa AS wrote
to the queen of Saba, he started his letter with “Bismillah” so right away we
remind ourselves and the receiver of the watchful eye of our Lord; and right
away we hold Him witness to what we write.
When you write a text/ email, make sure you read it from all
angles possible. Avoid using ambiguous statements which may make perfect sense
in person but remember the receiver cannot see the “eye-roll” in the email. Avoid
emailing when emotionally charged. If you feel the urge to write someone when
you are too emotional; type out the text and save it in drafts. Review when you
are calmer. And lastly, try your best to
not email or text important/emotional convos, or atleast follow it up with a
phone call or visit to clarify any misunderstanding.
In brief, care about the message, care about the receiver
and handle accordingly. Our prophet SAWW, the ones who epitomised brilliance of
character showed care in each of his interactions. His message was always
relevant, clear and considerate and hence he “connected” with the audience
whether it was a child, his wife or a congregation of non-believers.
Emoticons – the messiah of virtual communication
Apparently, you can ask someone for anything and end with a
smiley and it makes it ok. It actually does! Many a times I end a difficult
convo with a smiley (winky for the really tough ones) just to make it cordial. A
meme i read recently, said Thank you LOL for being there when i had nothing else
to say. How true is that?! On a serious
note though, emoticons are great and all but they donot replace emotions and context
and tone are still very relevant.
Let me diverge a little here - What you see rampant on
social media these days though is cross-gender convos having smileys, winkys
and lol. Umm excuse me... did you get the memo about how cross-gender convos
should go? What we aren’t allowed to do in person with each other, how are we
allowed it on social media? Our texts to the other gender (non-mahram) should
be relevant and to the point and we should consider exhausting other more halal
options before approaching the non-mahram. Although this wouldn’t apply if you
were referring to a scholar for advice/help – no smileys please.
Im sure we have all seen young men and women hitting it off,
all under the guise of “dawah” work. Ofcourse it is inevitable to cross paths
with the other gender, even in dawah work, but the interaction should be
carefully guarded and definitely limited. Keep reminding yourself, when a man
and woman are alone together – shaytan is the third among them. It applies to
social media too – surprise! How a “relevant” text turns into an entire
conversation and future conversations, is all shaytans work.
#WhoCares
Hashtags are the new thing, apparently you missed that memo
too eh? The attitude of youth for the last decade, perhaps longer has been just
that – who cares? People say it so much and so casually that it has actually
become real. We don’t care. Except that being social animals that we are, we
are inevitably in need of each other and must care. When we post
photos/statuses on facebook in the spirit of “who cares”; as in we don’t care
what anyone thinks, we are who we are, facebook is not my life, my status is
not about you etc etc - why exactly did
we post it then. Its social media – you post something that you want to share,
and others to see. If you didn’t care- why share! When we put ourselves out
there, we are doing just that and we expose ourselves and our vulnerabilities
to all sorts of people. Allah created each of us and bestowed us with izzah
(honor), we must honor ourselves in order for others to do so. Let’s not reveal
things about us that should only be privy to dear ones. Let’s care about
ourselves enough to keep the social media platform a means to communicate and
not show-off or advertise. Let’s care about each other to cover each others
weaknesses as we would like Allah to cover ours in this dunya and the
Hereafter. #wecare
