The cyber generation

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Rifat Fatima
The young men and women sit inside a brightly-lit cafe, their eyes glued to the computer screens. The level of concentration suggests as if they are far from the city's hustle and bustle outside their small cafe, where internet has mixed with coffee and snacks.
They seem to care little about their surroundings because of the 15-inch monitors bring the whole world in front of them.
This is common in the cafes that have sprung up in the capital city and elsewhere in the country. Cyber cafe is the latest craze for the young generation in Bangladesh. Although the country lags behind in terms of this branch of technology the number of cyber café is growing.
With growing interest in using e-mail, internet, web browsing and chatting, the country's young is gradually becoming a 'cyber generation' despite all difficulties common in a third world country like Bangladesh.
Among the cyber cafe users are a significant number of women who feel free to go out in search of knowledge, friends or jobs. Many of the cyber cafés are run by women who account for a large number of cyber visitors. "It's a nice way of relaxing and seeking knowledge at the same time" said Farzana Shammi who has just graduated from Dhaka University.
However, Shammi spends most of her time in cyber café for chatting, sending and receiving mails and sending greetings messages to friends and relations. She has hardly interest in browsing websites. Although there is a vast scope of gathering information from the internet, it is, in Bangladesh, mainly used for sending e-mails or chatting. Even most students do not browse educational websites.
Rehnuma Koli, 23, a student of Physics Department at Dhaka University, also does the same thing. "I use the internet mainly for sending messages. This is much cheaper than postal mail, phone or fax."
There are some exceptions. Mong Sing Thowai, 20, who studies in Bangladesh Agricultural University, said "I use the cyeber cafes to browse the sites of different foreign universities and educational sites for inforamtion."
The cyber café culture is hardly four-five years old in Bangladesh. In 1998, a fast food shop cum-ice-cream parlour at Banani for the first time introduced on-payment internet service for their customers.
Later, the business spread fast in Gulshan-Banani, Dhanmondi and different posh areas of the capital city. Now you can find cyber cafés at every 'para' and 'mahalla' of the city.
The cyber café culture started in the western world and then quickly transferred to other parts of the world, including the Asian countries. The young of the world took no time to fall in love with cyber cafes. In other countries, the cyber cafés offer tea, coffee and light food along with the internet. But such services are mostly unavilable in most of the cyber cafés in Bangladesh, says Reza Muktadir, another DU student, a frequent cyber cafe visitor.
He said mainly young people and students, both male and female, are the users of the cyber cafes. But the fever is spreading to other age group people too.
Fahmidul Haq is a lecturer of journalism in Dhaka University. He says he is a regular user of cyber café, where he spends time in browsing and collecting latest articles on various issues, including communication and journalism.
As per capita usage of computer and internet is still low in Bangladesh, cyber café is the only means of entering the world wide web for those who do not have their own computers or internet service.
Cyber café is also getting popular among job seekers. Rakib Ahmed, 28, has recently completed his study. He searches websites of different companies and submit bio-data for jobs. The business of cyber café has already spread to other big cities of the country, including Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Comilla. As internet service is being extended to small district towns in phases, the culture of cyber café is also spreading.
"Blue Planet" cyber café was opened in 1998 in Dhanmondi. "From the very beginning we have found huge interest among the young women. Now about 40 percent of our customers are women," says Mizanur Rahman, director of Blue Planet.
There was not more than a dozen cyber cafes in the capital city until 2000. That number has now crossed one hundred. Cyber café is popular in the areas close to the Dhaka University, the business hub of Motijheel and residential areas like Dhanmondi, Mirpur and Mohammadpur. Mizanur Rahman further says an average of 50 people visit his cafe each day. His cyber cafe has 10 computer terminals.
However, not all can afford the cost. As a result, the rich and upper middle class people remain the major customers. The is still hot for the lower middle class.
The cost averages Tk 40 an hour. "This is too much for students," says Towhid Khan, 23, a BSc student of Comilla Lalmai Degree College. "It should not be more than Tk 10 per hour," he suggests. Towhid says there are only two cyber cafes in Comilla town but the speed is not satisfactory. "We cannot find all necessary sites in these browsing centres."
The owners of cyber cafes have different opinions about the cost. "If the Internet Service Providers
(ISP) reduce the rate, we'll be able to give the service at a lower rate," says Shamim Saiduzzaman, owner of 'Power System' at Dhanmondi.
In fact, everything depends on the government policy and the rules of T&T Board, he says. The cyber café owners have to face many problems, including the speed of transferring data. The existing telecommunications infrastructure of the country does not provide necessary speed that reduces cost and time.
Manager of '@IT' Maruf Ibne Mahbub says "We are moving ahead despite a lot of problems. We cannot satisfy our clients with the current speed due to lack of optical fibre."
Cyber café is bringing a remarkable change in the lifestyle of the young generation. Alongside the positive impacts, there are some dark sides of using internet, particularly in cyber cafes.
"Children are being exposed to pornography in internet," says a businessman, father of two young boys.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the owner of a cyber café says many of his customers, mainly young boys, are intersted in just sex sites. "It's been a major attraction for them as it is very easy to find out a porno site in the Internet."
He says many of these boys have computers and internet connections at their home, but they prefer cyber café for seeing internet pornography.
However, some guardians think that the owners of cyber cafes can restrict browsing of pornographic sites using some software. Some of them say there is nothing to be worried as such bad habits will go away soon.
Women sometimes face embarrassment when others open pornographic sites before them at the browsing shops. "So privacy must be ensured in cyber café," says Tabassum Rahman, 22, a student of North South University. — NewsNetwork