Every Monday evening, children, grandchildren and loved ones meet in my father's aunts home, and this time we discussed a topic many families are suffering from - not only Kuwaiti, but many foreign societies too - lack of contacts. Discussions began when we spoke about WhatsApp and what this technological advancement has done in severing the ropes of contact between people. Rather how did this technology made writing the basis of human relations, which made most societies lose the language of speaking!

Here, my aunt spoke and asked those present, "who among you calls to check on others? May Allah help us, everyone is just holding the device and writes! Why do not we pick it up and call?"

That is the truth, and this is the case with most societies - communications are through a piece of metal, through which we write our feelings, sadness and pain, then it is sent through the electronic space without carrying the tones of sadness or joy. We are only satisfied with smiley or sad faces according to the occasion for which it was sent. Our emotions became enclosed inside that screen, and our feelings are drawn through those preset faces in the device until we lost the resonance of the smile and we forgot the groans of sadness. We miss the word "hello".

The word began with feelings, until it ended with our work, upbringing and the conditions of our lives, so how many officials process transactions with their employees through WhatsApp, and how many mothers check on their children, family and home through a message they send to the nanny in the house asking and answering what she asked? Who among us does not have many groups in which they write to check on the world's conditions and its societies, until our world is residing in WhatsApp.

We lost meditation, and we no longer live in our world, which made us not have the feeling to enjoy what the world has from the beauties from Allah's creations. We became similar to our devices, as they carry much information, but do not have emotions and feelings. When Almighty Allah created the human being, he differentiated between him and the rest of His creations with brains and speech, and here we are today, rejecting the bounty Almighty Allah gave us on speech, and accept to just be mere machines that write what they do not feel because they lost speech, and prefer to become a metal machine under the name of development and progress.

A final word: My aunt says, "Contact me as long as I am alive, and do not shed a tear for me when I die." - Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Anbaa

By Nermin Al-Houti