To all fathers and mothers: do not let the like buttons determine your children's worth, and do not let followers define their identity.. teach your children that they are "more precious than a digital footprint", teach them that dignity is not measured by the number of views, and that manhood is not proven by a post, and that modesty is a greater blessing than "the trend".. The screen is either a mirror in which we see our humanity, or a maze in which we get lost.. and the choice is still in our hands..

In a state of reflection on the reality of the Arab person in this era marked by a distinction between two intertwined, contradictory ages in which man alternates between two screens! The self, and the digital shadow, in a state of alienation.

When the screen became a mirror and a maze at the same time, digital culture was no longer merely a skill of using applications or browsing networks, but became a transformation into a new existential environment within which contemporary man lives as a two-dimensional being; a body of flesh and blood in the real world and a "digital self Avatar" residing in cloud servers.

Herein lies the philosophical and psychological dilemma.. So we may ask: Is the screen a reflective mirror, or a maze that swallows us? And are we the ones using technology, or is technology the one reshaping our humanity?

That psychological distance between admiration and anxiety, with emotional fluctuations between this and that. After man used to build his personality and self between his social surroundings and environment, where psychologist "Ronald Winnicott" says: 'The healthy child builds his self through a transitional space between him and his mother.' But today, the screen has become that new transitional space, but a disturbed space.

From here arises the cognitive dispersion syndrome. Our heads have not evolved biologically to be able to absorb three hundred notifications daily, as each alert is a quick dopamine dose. We become addicted to the alert before we comprehend the information. So what is the result then?!

Perhaps the result in this case is a mind that loses its ability to focus deeply (Deep Work), and then becomes addicted to superficiality, because in this case we do not read, but rather wipe the screen with our eyes as we wipe dust.

Thus we live in social comparison anxiety. While in the recent past we compared ourselves to our neighbors or acquaintances, today we compare ourselves to the polished 'highlight' reels of others, without knowing them: who are they? Where do they live? What are their environments? What is their world, their social circle, and their beliefs and customs?

This endless comparison creates a 'false self' that makes us feel perpetual deficiency, and we enter a vortex: we post to get. Validation, so we worry more, we post more without awareness, without knowledge, and without culture! That is from the psychological dimension. As for the philosophical dimension of this phenomenon, it is the shift from 'I think, therefore I am' to 'I post, therefore I am!' If Descartes founded modernity on subjective certainty in his own philosophy according to his thought, then our digital age founds existence on collective certainty, so we moved from the philosophy of the self to the philosophy of appearance!

Thus inevitably comes the death of privacy and the birth of the 'digital panopticon'. The philosopher Foucault spoke about the 'panopticon' prison where the prisoner does not know when he is watched, so he watches himself. And today we are voluntary prisoners; we publish our location, our picture, our opinions, because we know that someone is watching us. So we have become executioners and victims at the same time! Privacy is no longer a right, but has become a suspicion, based on doubt.

Then arises the crisis of meaning in the age of information. Whereas in the past, lack of information was man's enemy, today his enemy is the 'information flood'. When everything becomes available, everything loses its value. Man is no longer able to experience hidden sorrow or deep joy, and becomes afflicted with 'meaning blunting', where he sees the entire world as a flat feed to be scrolled.

Thus arises the question of identity: Who am I on these algorithms? Am I a perfect version of myself? Or a mask I wear?

If the philosopher Jean Baudrillard spoke about simulation as a copy without an original, many young people today build a personal 'brand' before building their real personality. So the most dangerous question becomes: If the internet goes out, who am I? A very urgent philosophical question!

Therefore, we must move towards a mature digital culture and a philosophy of digital moderation. The solution is not to demonize technology or return to the cave world, but rather to reclaim man from the grip of the algorithm. This requires a new upbringing and philosophy:

1- Pause education: before we post, we stop for seconds and ask: Does this express my true self? Or my momentary anger? This pause is an act of resistance against the slavery of immediacy.

2- Philosophy of boundaries: just as a house has walls, the soul must have a digital wall. Not everything we know must be said, and not everything we feel must be published. Privacy is not concealment, but respect for the sanctity of the self.

3- Restoring sacred contemplation. Contemplation is the womb of creativity, because when we fill every temporal void with 'scrolling', we kill our ability to think and reflect. Let us give ourselves one hour every day of 'no net' to sit with our emptiness, our contemplations, our anxiety, our thoughts. Only there is the real self born, not our 'avatar'.

Then in the end we must say to all fathers and mothers and to every young person approaching life: Do not let the like buttons determine your children's worth, and do not let followers define your identity.. teach your children that they are 'more precious than a digital footprint', teach them that dignity is not measured by the number of views, and that manhood is not proven by a post, and that modesty is a greater blessing than 'the trend'.

As we said at the beginning, the screen is either a mirror in which we see our humanity, or a maze in which we get lost.. and the choice is still in our hands.