Mobile Myanmar: The Impact of Social Media on Young People Living in Conflict-Affected Regions of Myanmar “Positives are young people can learn knowledge online in a situation where it is difficult to access education. Also, they can differentiate between fake news and real news and know what is harassment and hate speech after they use social media for so long.” Male, 29 years, Rohingya Muslim, Basara (Rakhine State IDP) “The positive side is if they want to know whether the news is real or not, they can find out from Facebook.” Female, 31 years, Kayah Buddhist, Ve Thae Ku village (Kayah State rural) A number of adults from the Muslim IDP camp thought that social media was playing a positive role in the moral and religious education of their young people, many of whom had never attended a mosque or religious school due to their displacement. “In Facebook there are some educational short videos that promotes moral standards, what we should do or how we should react, how to be respectful, how to talk politely to others etc. So some young people learnt good things from those videos and were able to change their attitude. They also find positive feelings to overcome their current stressful situation in the camp.” Male, 46 years, Rohingya Muslim, Basara (Rakhine State IDP) “Within family, they can learn about religion from social media... Some people don’t go to mosque and have never attended religious school before. By having a phone and social media, they can learn about religious practice. When they understand about religion, their social interactions also change.” Male, 29 years, Rohingya Muslim, Basara (Rakhine State IDP) Social media also played a positive role in promoting tolerance by raising awareness about people from other religions outside of their camp working towards equality. “Social media can raise awareness for our people. There are some Burmese and Rakhine who are working for equality. By seeing this, the people [in this camp] will think there are people from other religions and races, who have a good heart and are working for equality. And they have hope that there is a way for them to approach people from other backgrounds. Without social media, they wouldn’t have this kind of awareness. Before when we met white people, we used to believe that they’ll bring destruction to our religion. Some religious leaders taught us like this. As we can interact with people from other backgrounds and learn about them, it broadens our mind.” Male, 29 years, Rohingya Muslim, Basara (Rakhine State IDP) Some other young Muslim IDP respondents said that social media gives them a sense of hope or escape from their current situation. “There are more positive impacts. The blog like Dee Dee Burmese motivates young people. It gives encouragement to young people not to give up in their life”. Female, 18 years, Kaman Muslim, Basara (Rakhine State IDP) “One positive thing is when someone feels sad, using their phone can relieve the sadness.” Female, 22 years, Rohingya Muslim, Basara (Rakhine State IDP) 75