Mobile Myanmar: The Impact of Social Media on Young People Living in Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar between the Rakhine State and Kayah State samples can be attributed to the IDP sub-sample, with the exception of Instagram, which was more highly used by urban residents. YouTube was not listed among the choices for this question as some do not consider it a social media app per se. It was however identified using the ‘other’ option by 7.4% of the overall sample, but focus group discussions indicated that overall use among Myanmar young people is likely much higher than this. Facebook and Facebook Messenger were by far the most frequently used apps among all demographics (identified by 87.4% and 71.4% respectively overall), followed by Viber (30.3%). App use seemed to be very homogenous among Kayah State and Rakhine urban respondents, with these three apps the only ones identified as frequently used by more than 10% of these sub-samples (see Figure 3). However, IDP respondents were also frequent users of IMO (72.1%) and WeChat (55.7%). Group chat-based platforms such as IMO, WeChat and Viber are less public than Facebook, which is attractive for IDP communities. The popularity of IMO is likely due to its much larger group size limit (up to 100,000 users, compared to 500 for WeChat). Figure 3: Most frequently used social media apps 100% 90% 80% Kayah Urban 70% 60% Kayah Rural 50% Rakhine Urban 40% Muslim IDP 30% 20% 10% 0% The most common reasons identified for making a social media app popular in the overall sample were the ability to chat with friends (71.4%), keep up on news/information (68.4%), and share photos and videos (55.0%). Other common reasons included access to educational content (48.5%), ability to meet new people (42.9%), ‘everyone has it’ (37.2%), and ability to follow celebrities or personalities (34.2%). Each suggested reason was identified by males more frequently than females, with the biggest differentials for ability to follow friends (40.9% of males vs 17.7% of females), it’s entertaining (43.6% vs 21.2%), ability to play online games (39.1% vs 10.6%), everyone has it (47.3% vs 28.3%), and ability to flirt, find romantic partners or date (19.1% vs 7.1%). Similarly, each suggested reason was identified more frequently by respondents in the Rakhine State sample compared to the Kayah State sample, with the biggest differentials for ability to ability to learn more about my religion (49.6% of Rakhine State sample vs 5.7% of Kayah State sample), follow friends (42.4% vs 13.2%), it’s entertaining (45.6% vs 16.0%), everyone has it (49.6% vs 22.6%), ability to play online games (32.0% vs 16.0%), and ability to flirt, find romantic partners or date (17.6% vs 6.6%). IDP respondents were more likely than others to consider entertainment value, and ability to follow friends and learn more about religion and educational opportunities as reasons for an app’s popularity. 88