Voice of British Muslim Women

Danila Jonnud, Hampshire

I know what you’re going to say. “Social Media is bad! Don’t scroll!! Do something useful!!!” And to that I say…you’re right. But as a literature student I’m used to finding meaning in the mundane. Critical thinking hasn’t been sucked out of me just yet.

If you think it’s bad to scroll – which it is, as everyone not-so-jokingly jokes about – then maybe it will be less bad if we scroll together. I can take you on my scrolling journey and explain why it’s both useless and enlightening at the same time.

I’ve swiped onto the tab and first up is a food video, showing what someone ate while watching a new period drama: the food looks nice, and the atmosphere is cozy. I often get nutrition videos and my algorithm-manipulated “for you page” is showing a few of those right now, mainly positive ones as opposed to fearmongering. Nutrition has been divisive for a while, but it’s safe to say there are two sides, one bent on scaring you off every ingredient known to mankind, and the other believing that a balanced diet is best. I think my opinion is pretty clear. But this first reel is only showing off the food.

Avoiding a sticky situation about counting calories by not opening the comments, we swipe up to the next video. This is a Star Wars one because, being a bit of a nerd, I get sci-fi content. If we open the comments, we’ll see discourse about what is good and what is bad Star Wars, comments about acting skills, too many female characters, and too much wokeness. But trying not to get sucked in – “ragebaited” as they say – we’ll move on.

Swiping up again, a “hijabi influencer” is telling a story. As a Muslim, I obviously get quite a few videos from Muslim creators, but this is an area rife with discourse. Whether the video’s neutral and unrelated to religion, or discussing something relevant to Muslims (usually women), I already know the types of comments they will be getting. Sometimes I open them to see how far down I can scroll before the creator is criticised; it doesn’t take long.

The next videos are a mix. Statistics of violence against women, “get ready with me for…”, watch this to help stop war, thrift challenges, poetry, music videos, art trends, the evils of AI. I pause on the last one to read the comments; ah yes, these are my people, the ones who think generative AI should stop existing, vindication for my beliefs. But this is also a reminder. In real life, the vast majority of people I know are AI users, university students who swear they can’t live without it, no matter how many statistics I cite in a debate. The crux of it all is this. Discourse, debate, everyone having their own opinions, but so many opinions being formed on misinformation, propaganda, manipulated “facts”.

To scroll in this age, is to despair and hope. Both sides live in a vacuum. I believed for longer than I should have that genAI users were a minority. Instead, I am the minority, but my feed shows me what it knows I agree with. Life is strange on both sides of the rabbit hole. Wonderland is full of questions and debates, but never clear answers, and to defend yourself as Alice does, is to defend against minds made up.

But let’s scroll on.

Movie clips, comedians, Happy Birthdays, political statistics. I pause again, nervously. My Wonderland feed only shows me people who agree, those who also think prejudice and hate are ridiculous. And yet, I can still hear people shouting their opinions from the rabbit hole opening, telling me the only solution is to “take back” what has been stolen by immigrants and Muslims. I worry that if they’re loud enough to reach me in Wonderland, they’re loud enough to make a difference for the worse.

I learn what I need to and scroll on, desperate to laugh or like something which will take me further into my Wonderland and away from the scary comments. I wonder at people’s ignorance before realising their world makes sense to them, and if they only hear what they want to, of course they’ll never learn.

A scroll or two more and I find a funny video, light-hearted enough to end my need for distraction, make me throw my phone down, and face my pile of work. It’s about when you’ve been cleaning your room so long you unearth artifacts from your past and become engrossed in reliving your memories. In non-analytical terms, the person in the video found their childhood diary. I laugh, and the comments agree that there are so many universal experiences. I think of the discourse I’ve seen – what to eat, what to wear, what to vote, what to think – and the fact that people on both sides would still relate to videos about racing raindrops on car windows, rolling up backpack straps, university study spaces during exam season, trying to balance light switches, and being excited about football games (it’s coming home!).

It takes me back to something I keep wondering, about how easy it is to stop thinking of people as people. We might both know what it is to grieve, to cry, to feel like the world is going somewhere difficult and dangerous. And we might also know the same sci-fi trivia, the same air fryer hacks, the same posts about universal childhood experiences. And in scrolling, I saw both sides, trickling through the algorithmic dam, echoing from the rabbit hole opening.

But it’s better, I think, to focus and end on what makes us similar. With the World Cup on right now, people around the world are seeing the joy in cultural mixing, bringing hope to combat fear about the political climate. It’s so simple it feels naive, but I would rather pray for everyone’s lives to improve, than believe in ignorance that it’s me or them. And at the end of the day, even if we don’t eat the same food, watch the same movies, have the same faiths, or wear the same fashions, we still know what it’s like to see shapes in clouds, to miss our loved ones, and to search out small happinesses.

And I proved it, with just one scroll.