World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
For many people in the world, especially the young, e-mail has become a prime means of getting to know new people or staying in touch with family and friends. This is especially true for those who travel regularly. Two decades of surging growth in computer sales notwithstanding, most of the world's population still doesn't own a PC, let alone a laptop. Many of those who do have a computer at home or work often don't know how to surf the Web, the other great attraction associated with computer ownership.
These facts go a long way toward explaining the popularity of Internet cafés, of which there are now some 2,887 in 116 countries, reports www.cybercafe.com. The actual number is probably about 30 percent higher, judging from a country-by-country comparison of cybercafé listings and of the actual totals in Germany, Britain and the United States.
The town of Antigua is a long way from these countries. It is located in Guatemala, which might be thought of as a backwater of information technology interest and knowledge. Living off its wide range of folkloric offerings and a large number of language schools, this town of 30,000 has no less than seven Internet cafés - presumably one of the higher per capita ratios in the world.
''The cafés are thronged in the afternoon by students, who come from all over the world,'' says Jörg Umpfenbach, a 23-year-old Munich-based student who recently spent two months in Antigua. ''The vast majority of the students' time in the cafés is spent writing and receiving e-love letters and e-family missives; using the Internet is of minor interest. The café is our lifeline to the world, since the few of us who own laptops weren't prepared to lug them around the globe. E-mail is cheaper than calling, and you don't have the problem of not wanting to get off the phone.''
Enjoying similar popularity is Africa's first Internet café, opened in Johannesburg's Yeoville district in 1995. A line of patrons waiting up to two hours to get into the café is a common sight - especially on Sundays, when young people get to surf the e-waves free of charge. Yeoville's patrons are a mix of businesspeople in the process of setting up an IT business, university students doing on-line research and teenagers chatting with e-pals around the world.
Moses Trumpler is an Internet café chatterer. He comes from Germany, where computer ownership is widespread, but on-line costs can be high (by American standards). ''My parents say they don't want to have a PC because of the telephone bills, so I go to our local Internet café, where I hang around with a few of my friends. We 'chat' and eat pizza,'' says the 13-year-old, who lives in Grünstadt, Rhineland-Palatinate.
Food and sociability are key elements of most Internet cafés in Europe and America, where dining (or at least quaffing an espresso) and on-lining go hand in hand. A common sight in Munich's three Internet cafés is diners enjoying their pasta (a local staple) and, at the same time, chatting and surfing.
If eating and typing sound like incompatible activities, try concentrating on the intricacies on an on-line transfer and listening to loud music, much of it live. But many Internet cafés also offer music.
An Internet café in Cologne has DJs spinning techno records all day - and evening - long. New York's Internet Café, which opened in 1995, has grown to be one of the city's leading jazz joints, with six evenings of live music a week.
A lack of supervision, parental or otherwise, is another reason for patronizing an Internet café. In the late afternoons, Munich's cybercafés are chock-full of teenagers chatting with their friends. ''My parents own a computer, and I can go on-line anytime I want,'' says one. ''But they keep an eye on what and to whom I e-mail.''
Many people frequent Internet cafés to get to know potential partners, through either physical or virtual proximity or, in the case of a 20-year-old student of international marketing in Munich, both. After two hours of flirting on-line with a young woman, he learned that the object of his attentions was sitting at the next computer.
For many people, however, learning, not love, is a prime reason for visiting an Internet café. ''I learned how to get on-line and download a browser at my 'local','' says a patron in New York.
Terry Swartzberg