All youngsters have phones. But nobody knows what they are doing.

I see them everywhere, these kids with their phones. Sitting on the seawall in Malé, glowing screens held close to their faces like tiny, private suns. They scroll and tap, their thumbs moving faster than the ferry horns out in the harbor. We call them the future, these 50,000 young souls, and the politicians whisper about them in meetings, trying to find the right words to catch their attention. But what are they looking at on those screens? Is it news from Gaza, or a dance from Dubai? A call for accountability, or a meme about stolen cigarettes? Nobody really knows. And maybe they don’t know either. There’s a feeling that everything is happening at once, and nothing is happening at all. The President makes a declaration of principle that echoes across the ocean, while someone threatens to reveal who stole millions of cigarettes at 4 PM. An ambassador presents his credentials, and a volleyball team gets sent to Dhaka with wishes for success. It’s all noise, a chaotic symphony played on different devices, and the youngsters are the orchestra, each playing their own tune. They have the whole world in their hands, but I wonder if they feel any of it in their hearts. Sometimes I think the real struggle isn’t about big policies or international stances. It’s happening right here, in the quiet space between a notification and a thought. It’s in the question of what you can really say without it being twisted into a threat. It’s in the weary joke about institutions that take five years to answer a letter. We are a small country trying to shout our principles to the world, while back home, we’re still learning how to talk to each other. The youngsters hold the number that can sway an election, but what do they want to vote for? A better economy? A consistent supply of medicine? Or just someone who understands the silence behind the screen? They are the big number, the quiet question mark at the end of every political statement. And perhaps, in not knowing what they are doing, they are the most honest reflection of us all.