Young people in Yangon head to internet cafés in droves to chat with their friends. Pic: Lwin Maung Maung

INCREASING numbers of internet cafés in Yangon and Myanmar mean that even more young people have access to the worldwide web and a network of friends and family across the globe.

For Maung Aung Ko, a 17-year-old first-year English specialisation student, his daily routine includes checking emails and chatting online from one Yangon internet café every evening.

The internet has become an essential activity for Maung Aung Ko and the best resource for young people like him to surf into the worldwide web.

“Some of my friends are studying in foreign countries. Chat rooms and email is the only easy way I can keep in contact with them. So, every day I go to an internet café to check my email and talk with them,” he said.

An additional benefit of chatting with friends in this way, Maung Aung Ko said, was that he also had the chance to meet new friends.

“When I’m talking an old friend, we usually use Gtalk to chat at a date and time we’ve arranged earlier. But at other chat rooms, I often speak with people I don’t know. With some of the people I've met like this we have gone on to become friends in the real world,” he said.

But Maung Aung Ko said he used the internet for more than just keeping in contact with his friends.

“In the future, I have plans to study abroad so I frequently visit foreign university websites and to make online inquiries and see what courses they are offering.”

At last December’s Myanmar ICT Expo 2006 in Yangon, a local computer company, Service Plus Co, conducted a survey on the use of internet among the general public. It showed that 73 percent of internet users are between 14 and 25-years-old.

Ko Ye Tun Aung, who works at Service Plus Co, explained why he thought internet cafes were popular among youths.

“The first reason why internet cafés get the interest of young people is because they like to chat online or play online games. They want to be part of a community and they make friends by chatting. It's becoming more and more popular all the time,” he said.

He said many young people wanted to broaden their social community and the internet gave them a chance to do this.

He agreed with Maung Aung Ko that the internet was important for those interested in going to study overseas.

“For young people who plan to go to abroad to further their studies the internet is the must. They go to internet cafés to plan for their future. Later, many youths also use the internet in different ways, like building their own blogs,” Ko Ye Tun Aung said.

Internet ‘blogs’ are personal opinion pieces which have become popular in developed countries where the writers use them to air grievances about their work or personal lives. Some take the form of online diaries.

And for many people the best way to use the internet was to go to internet cafes.

For Maung Win Aung, an 18-year-old regular internet cafe visitor, cost was an important factor.

“Using the internet at the cafés is much cheaper and easier than installing it at home,” he said.

“To install the internet at our house we need to have at least one telephone line and a computer. But if we use an internet café, it only costs us only K400 or K500 per hour,” he said.

The latest statistics from Myanmar Info Tech shows that there are 112 Public Access Centres (PAC) in Yangon, 14 in Mandalay and 12 in other cities, totalling 138 PAC countrywide.

Myanmar Info Tech announced at their annual general meeting plans to issue 100 PAC licences per year in Myanmar, meaning there will be even more opportunities for young people to access the internet and the web will spread beyond the major cities.