It is often easy to forget that Dedan and my other Burmese friends only had more extensive
access to the internet since 2014. Today the smartphones seem to be present at all times in
Yangon´s streets. We laughed with Dedan, and of how it now is evident for him where these
pictures came from. Dedan now works as a programmer, developing and coding applications
for Android devices. He spent one year in private school and was lucky to get a job. When
something was not functioning correctly on my phone, Dedan was always the person I asked
first. That first experience in the small internet café back in 2012, turned out to be the
beginning of a love story between Dedan, technology, and internet.
This thesis captures a particular point in Myanmar´s history when extensive use of the internet
has become common amongst residents since 2014. Dedans’ story gives an impression of how
important and incorporated in daily life the internet, technology, and this open access has
become amongst some young professionals in Yangon today. How the world opened up for
the Burmese people, and how it in many ways can create a feeling as being part of something
bigger, and at the same time being somewhat inadequate. The enormous development
happening after 2014 has brought many opportunities, but at the same time, it also uncovered
limitations and challenges to overcome now and in the future. Furthermore, in Myanmar, it is
today common amongst residents to interpret Facebook as the internet and use Facebook as
the entry point to the internet. This means that everything you do online most often happens
through the Facebook application on the smartphone.
This thesis aims to take a closer look at the use of the internet amongst young adult in
Yangon, Myanmar. Through six months of ethnographical fieldwork, I tried to obtain a
potentially more profound understanding of the use of Facebook as the internet in Myanmar.
My main research questions are:
How did Facebook gain its position, and how does Facebook keep it?
What happens when Facebook becomes the primary internet access in a community?
How does the situation affect my informants, and how do they, themselves, understand it?
The thesis will look at literature from social media, infrastructure, feelings and emotions, and
social performance. The next part will give an overview of the literature and theories that
have informed my analysis. When looking into literature discussing technology and social
media, in particular, there are two main ways to approach these topics. One side has an
interpretation of the new technologies as something that becomes part of being a human and
humanity, while the other position closer to STS-studies (Science and Technology Studies),
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