Mobile Myanmar: The Impact of Social Media on Young People Living in Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar degraded the dignity of Myanmar and contributed to the harassment of women. In contrast, some young people liked the broader exposure to fashion and pop-culture that social media gave them. The majority of young people in the current study reported that they check the accuracy of news they read on social media. However, Meers (2015, p. 4) suggested that “people are not always as diligent as they say they are in the way that they check the information they receive”. While there is no way to determine how accurate self-reports of checking behaviour are, there is a general perception among young people that their peers’ trust in news on social media is low, and that it is adults (who are less acquainted with Facebook) who are most actively sharing fake news. Regarding hate speech, the recent observational study by McKay (2017a) identified the phenomena of ‘hate speech fatigue’ – the apathy that results from the high volume of hate speech encountered on social media. In the current study, this phenomenon was more often described in relation to fake news (which often includes hate speech). As in McKay’s study, rather than explicitly challenging, reporting or notifying others about such content, some participants in the current study reacted by simply ignoring it or posting a ‘haha’ emoji, which has actually become a method for notifying others that a post is fake news (but also increases its visibility in their friends’ newsfeeds via Facebook’s algorithms). McKay (2017a) also found that instead of using the share function, social media users in Myanmar are more likely to copy and paste text into new posts. While this was not specifically mentioned by participants in the current study, it is consistent with the difficulty that they often experienced in identifying the original source of news. As a result, young people are forced to rely on discussion in the comments, or on offline networks to determine the validity of online information. Another recent study that informed the research questions of the current study was that undertaken by Grizelj (2017), who concluded that social media channels are better suited for engaging with young people to promote acceptance of diversity than traditional channels. Support for the suitability of social media for promotion of social cohesion was found in the current study, with multiple examples of social media being the channel through which young people developed understanding and acceptance of other cultures and communities, particularly Muslims. Phandeeyar’s most recent study (Oo & Thant, 2019) also identified online harassment as a pressing issue for youth, particularly women and girls. As in the current study, Phandeeyar found that harassment often stemmed from a lack of understanding regarding privacy controls. In particular, Phandeeyar notes that most of the users in their study were unaware that entering a phone number was optional for account setup. As a result, users regularly divulged their personal contact information without being aware that it was unnecessary. The research in context: Global perspective General concerns around social media use The results of this study confirm that the prevalence of smartphones and social media use among young people in Myanmar is high compared with developing countries in Africa, the Middle-East, parts of South America, and even some European and Asian countries, as it rapidly approaches the level of countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD; Poushter, Bishop & Chwe, 2018). In the US, more than half of teens say that they spend too much time on their phones (Anderson & Jiang, 2018), yet only 10% of Myanmar youth in the current study said this, with over 20% actually saying they don’t spend enough time on their phones. Many young people in Myanmar reported using use their phones whenever they are not working or studying, in turn being distracted from other more active tasks and keeping them up late at night. Similar heavy use patterns across the span of the day have been observed in OECD countries (Graafland, 2019) where parents are concerned about the potential impact of screen time on their children’s sleep, mental health and physical activity. Recent systematic reviews have found significant negative associations between screen time and sleep outcomes (Hale & Guan, 2015; Carter et al., 2016). However, current evidence suggests that screen time has a negligible impact on mental health (Orben & Przybylski, 2019) and physical activity (Gebremariam et al., 2013) when the broader context of adolescent activities are taken into account. In the current study, most of the concern from both parents and young people focused on the negative impact social media is reportedly having on the quality of offline relationships with family and friends, suggesting a need for education 99