Mobile Myanmar: The Impact of Social Media on Young People Living in Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar around digital nutrition (i.e., maintaining balanced, sustainable ways of managing technology use; Brewer, 2019). Another concern raised by some Myanmar parents was the potential for young people to start romantic relationships with people they have only met via social media, leading to marriage at a young age. The extent of this across Myanmar is not known, but it is not common in OECD countries, though clearly there are big cultural and religious differences between these two contexts. The most common social media activities among young people from Myanmar were sharing news, followed by sharing health information and education opportunities. The identification of these as primary activities differs to those typically identified by young people from OECD countries, who engage in more online gaming, general chat, and original photo and video sharing, particularly via Snapchat and Instagram which have risen in popularity among young people at the expense of Facebook in recent years (Martin, Wang, Petty, Wang, & Wilkins 2018). Facebook remains the most popular app for news among young people in many parts of the world, and social media the most popular news source in general (Smith & Anderson, 2018). Around a third of Myanmar youth surveyed in the current study said they primarily get their news from social media, which is consistent with the worldwide average across countries with emerging and developed economies (Smith & Anderson, 2018). Playing games on social media was popular among boys in Myanmar, as was posting selfies, but both were less popular among Myanmar girls who were advised not to post pictures of themselves to prevent image-based abuse. Online harassment and other dangers Global statistics on rates of image-based abuse are only speculative. However, the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner (2017) recently published a report indicating that one in ten adults have experienced image-based abuse, with rates highest for women under 24 years, at one in four. The prevalence of image-based abuse was not measured quantitatively in the current study, but qualitative responses suggest that it is a significant issue for girls in Myanmar. However, few victims said that they took any action in response to image-based abuse or harassment, with many saying they feared retaliation from perpetrators. The Australian eSafety Commissioner report found that 76% of victims did not take action, with the most common reason being a belief that doing so would not change anything (fear of retaliation was not recorded as a reason among this sample). However, of those who did take action, 87% said that doing so resolved the problem for them, likely due to the powers that the e-Safety Commissioner has to compel social media platforms to act in these cases. This highlights the importance of not only educating young people in Myanmar about the actions they can take when confronted with image-based abuse, but providing them with support and avenues for legal recourse also. Apart from the differences outlined above, overall young people in Myanmar use social media in much the same way as young people from other countries, with urban youth in particular doing a significant amount of their socialising with peers online. However, Myanmar young people have much less awareness of how to safely deal with the privacy, social, political and economic dangers of online interaction compared with other countries that have had a more gradual, scrutinised and regulated uptake of social media. For example, 89% of Australians aged 16–17 years know how to block people on social media, and 92% know how to change their privacy settings (Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2013). In contrast, only a small minority of young people in the current study knew how to use the blocking, reporting and privacy functions of Facebook. This makes young people in Myanmar vulnerable to the online dangers highlighted in this report such as online harassment, image-based abuse, hacking and online scams. In addition, while many respondents in the current study said they avoid posting controversial political stories or comments, they are unlikely to be acutely aware of the Myanmar Government’s media and communication laws, which change on average several times a year, specifically around speaking out against the government or Myanmar military (Thuzar, 2017). The criminalization and reported intimidation of internet users under these laws largely contributes to Myanmar’s low ‘Internet Freedom Score’ (Freedom on the Net, 2018). Freedom on the Net (2018) also reports that by international standards, the prevalence of online harassment, hate speech and political persecution in Myanmar are at high-to-veryhigh levels, particularly against women. 100