Being seen online is not the same as being known at home.
I remember sitting in a parent workshop in Karachi last year when a father raised his hand and said something I have not been able to forget.
“Sir, mera beta ghar mein rehte hue bhi ghar mein nahin hota.” (“Sir, my son lives in our home, but he is never really there.”)
He wasn’t talking about physical absence. His son was in the next room, phone in hand, surrounded by voices from a screen. The father hadn’t lost him to rebellion or bad company. He had lost him to something quieter. A distance with no name. A kind of presence that isn’t really there.
His son has hundreds of followers. He posts. He scrolls. He replies. But when was the last time anyone, including the people who love him most, asked him something real?
He has 847 followers. He came home from school today and didn’t speak to a single person he trusts. That’s not a connection. That’s performance.
Continue reading “The Loneliest Generation: Why Pakistani Teenagers Feel Alone in a Connected World”