Maroon 309at one station accessing various programs and online experiences. In such
instances, users interact a great deal with each other. When friends sit at
separate terminals, there is somewhat less interaction, but frequent casual
exchanges continue. Onsite users also interact to play online games and
share information on how to use programs and software. Rather than
rooms filled with silent screen-staring Internauts, cybers are alive with the
sounds of conversation as animated users communicate either with their
immediate neighbor or with remote friends with whom they are digitally
linked.
n addition to recording the habits of users and conducting inter-I
views with Internauts in Casablanca, I also conducted a public opinion
survey. The survey was carried out with the gracious help of Casablancan
research assistants and took place over a period of four months in 2001.
Survey forms were offered to people at twelve designated locations in
the city. Six of the sites were cybercafés located in socio-economically
distinct quarters. The other six sites, selected by my research assistant
Mohammad Iggouch, were public sites without computers, including tele-
boutiques, hair salons and traditional cafés. Gathering survey results from
both wired and “unwired” sites allowed the “public” to remain defined as
Moroccan residents, rather than Moroccan Internauts. Overall, two hun-
dred survey forms were filled out. Together with other forms of field data,
the surveys provide us with a comprehensive portrait of activities occur-
ring in cybers.
e majority of survey respondents who utilize the Internet at Th cybers
do so for multiple purposes, including online chatting, email, dating,
news reading, Web surfing and linked gaming.^32 The typical Moroccan
Internaut has learned to make use of extensive downtime, a result of
tediously slow network connections. While a page loads its information,
the user will revert to one of several other open pages on the desktop,
whether other Internet pages or desktop programs, such as Microsoft
Word and Excel (used by 71 percent and 58 percent of Internet and new
media users respectively).^33 Multitasking allows Internauts to make full
use of the connection minutes they pay for. One can find students doing
homework in one window and chatting in another.
hen Moroccan Internauts plug into the virtual realm, they engage W
in social exchanges at global, regional and local levels. The popularity of