By COLlive reporter
Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Diskin, has been serving as the Head Shliach of the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Ata since 1983, has been heavily involved in communal life as an educator and now as Chief Rabbi of the city.
This past Thursday, while he was officiating a wedding, he suddenly heard exclamations from the crowd. “I heard people calling out, ‘there’s no Instagram’, ‘there’s no Facebook’, ‘there’s no WhatsApp’.”
When the chuppa ended and people told him about the crash of the world’s largest social media network, “My first reaction was that I wished it would take a few months until the error is fixed,” he said. “Sadly, it only took a few hours.”
In an interview with Hertzel Kosashvili, a reporter for Israel’s Chabad news website COL.org.il, Rabbi Diskin said the dependency on social media “isn’t any less terrible than addiction to drugs, gambling or alcohol.”
“What I was hoping for is that we return to normalcy,” Rabbi Diskin said. “What’s going is a disaster, and we haven’t realized it yet. People don’t have a life of their own anymore.”
He also said that unfiltered exposure to content on the web has broken marriages and has driven many youngsters off the path of Yiddishkeit. Regarding WhatsApp, he said: “It is too early to know what percentage of dropouts this will cause among our youth.”
Rabbi Diskin admitted that the addiction has afflicted both adults and youth, but stressed his great concern for its effects on Yeshiva bochurim particularly.
“The problem starts from home and that’s where they ‘fell’,” he said. “Parents aren’t aware of the dangers of what’s out there. It can be from the smartphones many youths have access to when they return from Yeshiva and I even hear that there are ways to find (shmutz) on a ‘kosher phone,'” he said.
“Back in the day, when a bochur wanted to go off the way, he would have to go to great lengths to make it happen,” he said. “Today, within a moment, in his own room, he can go into the abyss.”
As soon as you let someone or something “take over your life”, you lose YOUR life! Thank G-d, I never used/had any social media platforms (besides YouTube) because I never needed them. If I need them, I have them. if I can live without them, then I dont need them.
people need to realize how detrimental these tumedike platforms are. i personaly have a kosher phone, and things are way better.
even if a dumb phone still has internet, you can bring it to someone to modify the chipboard and filter it.
in yeshivah, ye had a huge mivtzah for kosher phones, and the entire atmosphere changed!
Facebook and Instagram, promote competition and strife and misery. WhatsApp is often used for calling into Simchas for people who can’t make it. So WhatsApp is one of our more essential apps, especially when we’re often so far away from one another.
in you need to call in, call in a regular phone! no need for whatsapp
International voice calling is often quite expensive. WhatsApp calling just counts towards your data usage, so is far cheaper.
The man is right.
As an out of towner living across ocean from family WhatsApp means I can call my parents grandparents siblings friends without the heavy cost of international calls It means I can see my family faces instead of only seeing them once a year I can keep in touch with the people in my community in Shlichus with broadcast groups for shabbos timings My father can ask for a 10th man for minyan easily Great to acknowledge the problem but show how to use it for the positive The Rebbe always stressed how things are in the world for us to… Read more »
Good point but we are all hooked up with WhatsApp through our schools, meetings, work, Torah classes – so it’s a good source of free communication platform …
But until in turned off, you didn’t realize how addictive it was and still is. we made do without it for a day, without the statusing and ENDLESS groups and info and pics and and and and and וד”ל
Alcohol can be used in a good way, such as kiddush or a l’chaim. It can also be abused if used in the wrong amounts, at the wrong time, by youth, etc. Whatsapp can be used in a good way, for recordings of shiurim, to call people overseas, to ask for rides, or other chesed but can also be abused, by spending too much time on it, posting inappropriate material, etc. –
Whats so difficult to understand that there are good uses of wp and other platforms?
Its not a novelty….
get a tablet use a separate (free) Google number and only have watts app chats on the tablet. keep ur phone for personal contacts only.
your welcome.🤗
You will have 2 different numbers?
Use it for good – give tzdoko using technology
The Rebbe was happy and encouraged Tanya shuir in radio and on Jewish content on TV etc.
But NEVER encouraged a Lubavitcher to get a TV or Radio on the contrary the Rebbe said you are bring a church into your home by watching some priest speak on TV
“isn’t any less terrible than addiction to drugs, gambling or alcohol.”
I mean it kinda is, just saying
I went off FB and whatsap two months ago, after much consideration. I have no regrets. More people should do this. Life is less stressful. B”H for giving me the courage. There are plenty of other ways to communicate with people, and to know whats going on in the world also. Most news is just stupid gossip anyway.
I respect the Rabbi opinion. But it trully depends on who use the whatss app and for what reason. Whatss app is good if You tried to connect with good friends and family who live overseas. All my life eversince i was 18 years old i studied overseas and every week i have to use at least 100 dollars on pay paid phone card just to keep in touch with my parents and friends. I was happy when i got whatss app on my phone already few years i save money and i dont need to use it for other… Read more »