# Doomscrolling is Rewiring Your Brain | Imam Tom Weekly

**Author:** Tom Facchine
**Series:** Imam Tom Live
**Published:** 2025-02-05
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/hxo66gC-o3c
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/imam-tom-live/doomscrolling-is-rewiring-your-brain-imam-tom-weekly
**Topics:** Culture, Family & Community, General Psychology, Psychology & Mental Health

## Description
In a world where being visibly Muslim feels more challenging than ever, now is not the time to hide our identity. Imam Tom Facchine describes how, in the face of a shifting political climate, we can embrace the challenges of being Muslim much in the way the Prophet (s) did, and be able to...

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot.

**[0:16]** Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. Doomscrolling and Brain Rot. The TikTok dance, the viral TikTok dance, the idea that people will just make a video of themselves dancing to something and then put it up for everybody in the world to see. That's a relatively new phenomenon. You think that it's just a window out.

**[0:32]** You think that it is just you accessing the world, you're accessing other people, you're accessing news, information, but every window out is also a window in to you. And once it becomes normalized, then it's a possibility for you, for the people around you.

**[0:50]** It becomes a very, very subtle form of peer pressure. And we recognize this with children. We know that with children, there are certain things that you don't expose them to. Nobody would want children to be exposed to really gruesome things or explicit things when they're four, five, six years old.

**[1:06]** Why? Why do we have that exception for children, but we think that us as adults aren't affected? Well, we realize that children are impressionable. We realize that if you see a six-year-old walking around with a cigarette, it's disturbing because you expect them to be more innocent than that.

**[1:22]** You expect them to be more pure than that. You're surprised that that would seem like a possibility and that young child had to learn it, had to see it from somewhere in order for it to become a possibility and then in order for him or her to actually enact that reality. But we're not that different from children in the sense that we are impressionable.

**[1:40]** We're very impressionable, whether it's even words. You know, everybody makes fun of the Gen Z lingo or the different Internet lingo or anything else. And this is one of the amazing things about Islam, that Islam calls us to be intentional and to bring a level of intentionality to everything that we do.

**[2:00]** So you're intentional not just with the food that you eat or not just in your prayers or your acts of worship, but every single thing that you do, every single thing that comes across your eyes, every single thing that you're going to be listening to, every single word that you speak, every friendship that you strike up.

**[2:18]** It's not just because, oh, I like this person or I get along with this person, this person makes me laugh. No, you actually have a responsibility to be intentional. How is this going to affect my afterlife? How is this going to affect my soul? If I make this person a companion of mine or a friend of mine, is it going to affect me positively or negatively?

**[2:37]** Is it going to normalize certain behaviors, whether it's curse words or whether it's lying or going out to certain places, places where sin happens? Or is this person going to actually add value to my life and normalize and create a subtle kind of peer pressure that's going to force me to be better?

**[2:56]** So we have to bring that level of intention and intentionality to everything that we do. And especially in the days of social media and the Internet, you have to be super careful. The algorithm is going to try to throw you, it's going to try to take you down. You've got targeted advertising, you've got dangers everywhere.

**[3:12]** It's a minefield. But as Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala said in the Quran, That you've got to take responsibility. There's no neutrality. This is a moving train. You either have to decide to bring that level of intentionality to the things that you do and strive to be, even if it's just a little bit better every single day, 1% better, 1% better, 1% better.

**[3:33]** Or you're going to just operate in cruise control. You're going to let yourself be open to every influence out there. And then without even realizing it, perhaps you're going to be taken down, down, down to a worse and worse place.

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