WHAT DOES DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP MEAN? 

This is what I asked myself when preparing for this blog post. According to Isman & Canan Gungoren (2013), there are three main definitions: 

Digital citizenship can be defined as ‘the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regards to technology use’, or ‘the characteristic of a genuine digital city’ or ‘those who use the Internet regularly and effectively’.

In a practical sense, this means anyone who uses the internet on a regular basis is a digital citizen. Just as in civilized society, there are ethics and generally accepted codes of conduct that guide behaviors. The digital society is a society that surpasses natural societal boundaries such as country, language, culture, and religion. Also, there are no real laws or rules that are enforced by police or surveillance, other than terms and conditions that must be followed when using a particular service or online platform. It is generally the responsibility of each digital citizen to follow social norms and practice internet etiquette. 

Source:

Isman, Aytekin & Canan Gungoren, Ozlem 2013. Being Digital Citizen. Science Direct: Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences. Sakarya: Sakarya University. Elsevier. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813046788#!. Accessed 30.3.2022.

KELA, OMAKANTA AND KEVA

The internet provides access to various types of services for its users. A digital citizen can access services such as health care and social security. In the past decade, there have been significant advancements in the digital services provided by Kela, Omakanta and Keva. It is no-longer necessary to fill-in and mail paper documents or visit the Kela office to apply for or seek information about benefits. Also, health records, certificates and prescriptions can be easily accessed through Omakanta.

The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, also known as KELA, is in charge of distributing social benefits to the residents of Finland. The institution distributes benefits such as unemployment benefits, student financial aid, child benefits, sickness benefits and much more. 

For my family KELA provides a variety of services, under the categories of family benefits and student benefits. Currently we receive a monthly child benefit allowance, a monthly student allowance and a government student loan guarantee. Additional financial aid is available to families and students depending on their family status, financial situation and housing arrangements.

Kanta.fi is a digital service that provides social and health care services. Citizens, pharmacies, public and private health care and social services have access to the Kanta services. Omakanta is a service within the Kanta services which provides digital access to Finnish residents. From Omakanta you have access to health records, medical prescriptions, and medical certificates. For example, you can access and download your digital corona passport from Omakanta. 

Logging into Omakanta is quite simple. Visit the website kanta.fi/omakanta. Choose your preferred language setting from the top menu. Click on the ‘Log into My Kanta Pages’ icon. This transfers you to the Suomi.fi e-identification service. You must log into the service with strong identification verification using your bank institution’s brokering service which provides your name and social security number. Choose your bank and this will transfer you to you bank’s identification service. You can choose to identify with identification codes or by using a mobile identification application. Once you have identified yourself to the bank, the bank will refer the information back to Suomi.fi service which will then ask you to confirm your name and social security number and give you access to the Omakanta page.   

A similar login process gives access to your personal pension services provided by Keva.fi. Here it is possible to calculate your retirement age and predicted retirement income. You can see how much retirement benefits you have paid from your monthly income to date. You can also calculate your predicted monthly pension based on a monthly salary you input into the calculator. 

The current average income of a registered nurse in Finland is approximately 3000e/month. Based on this monthly income and my age, I was able to calculate the following:

• My earliest retirement age is 67 years and 8 months.

• If I retire at the age of 67years and 8 months I will receive 1723,40 e/month.

• If I retire at 70 years of age, I will receive 2019,60 e/month.

With this calculation in mind, it would be a good idea to take good care of my health and start a retirement savings plan. Or at the least own a home and have it payed off before retirement, if I want to survive off 1723,40 e/month at my retirement age. 

DIGITAL SHOPPING, IS IT WORTH IT?

There are many aspects of digital shopping that influence a decision to use digital shopping services or to prefer local in-store shopping. These include: price, delivery time, environmental impact, convenience, impact on local businesses and many more. 

If cost is the motivator, many people choose to use digital shops to purchase everyday items. eBay, Amazon, Wish to name a few, are the most popular. Depending on the product of interest, digital markets can usually provide a very competitive price. Regular household items typically cost less if ordered through Wish or eBay and usually ship directly from China. Cell phone cases, watch bands, sewing supplies, toys and small gadgets are among some of the items I have personally purchased online since 2010. The majority of purchases have been successful in both delivery and product quality. Product descriptions of products sold in digital shops vary. Wish, eBay and Amazon all provide products in a similar way. The sellers are various smaller businesses that sell their products using the digital market platform. Each item is described and marketed by the small business and the quality of the description depends on their language skills, marketing skills and strategies. For the unlucky buyer, some products may be deceptively marketed to be of higher quality than the picture or description leads you to understand. 

The following is a product search that I did a little while back. I was looking to purchase approximately 30 LED taper candles for a local church organization. 

At the local department store Tokmanni, the price was 12,99e for 2 candles (6,50e each).

On Wish the candles were 33,00e for 6 candles including shipping and an estimated delivery 2-4 weeks (5,50e each).

On eBay 12,23e for 4 candles including shipping and an estimated delivery 3-6 weeks (3,05e each).

On Amazon 13,51e for 6 candles, plus 9,80e delivery fee and an estimated delivery 3-5 weeks (3,80e each).

I have purchase experiences from all three of these digital shops and have never had major issues with any of them. Personally, I would have been confident to purchase from any of these shops and the best price was on eBay. However, since these products were not for personal use, I was advised not to purchase them online because the quality of the product was not verifiable. I ended up waiting a couple months and purchasing the candles in-store from Tokmanni during a sale when the candles were -50% and paid 3,25e per candle. 

The decisive factor in this case was quality. It is never 100% certain that a product will be delivered, on time and that the product matches the description provided on the online shop. From an environmental perspective there are many things to consider. The decision to acquire the product was for building safety reasons, not because the LED candles could be more environmentally friendly. Regardless of where they are purchased from, LED candles are mostly only produced in China.The carbon footprint is likely similar if they are purchased from a store in Finland or directly from China, making it irrelevant whether the items are purchased online or in-store. Additionally, the candles at Tokmanni would have possibly gone to waste if they weren’t sold after the season at a sale price. From the perspective of convenience, ordering from the digital shops would have been less convenient than purchasing at a full price from Tokmanni. Purchasing the candles from Tokmanni on sale was the least convenient because of the wait and uncertainty of supply. In the end, Tokmanni was the most reliable source in terms of quality and price. 

DIGITAL HEALTH SERVICE Omaolo.fi

A digital health care service I have recently discovered is the Omaolo.fi website. From here it is possible to access your local social and health care services digitally anywhere or anytime of your convenience. Omalolo provides a series of symptom questionnaires which you can complete based on the illness or symptom of your concern. Through analysis of the health information you provide in the quesionnaires, the service offers a professional assessment based on up-to-date evidence based research and nationally agreed criteria. The assessment also informs if it is advisable to contact your local health care provider for further assessment. It is possible to save the information and the assessment to your health records and send it to your local health care provider as a request for care. Using Omaolo, it is possible to assess common illnesses, find the services you have access to, fill in health questionnaires requested by your health care professional, complete a health or welless check-up, and access digital wellness coaching. 

This type of digital health service is a valuable source of information and a good beginning to the Social and Health care Reform initiative of including the patient more actively into the care process. Also, this provides the user with professional, up-to-date information about their health concerns without the need for a health care professional consultation. Hopefully these types of services will reduce ‘Google diagnosis’ and help people to better understand their health, to relieve symptom anxiety and unnecessary consultations. 

As a user, this service was very informative. I was curious to make a health assessment and discover what the service has to say. According to the health survey I should continue with my healthy lifestyle habits and increase my cardiovascular health by being more physically active. I would have liked to save the assessment to my personal health records; however, this was not possible because my local health care center doesn’t use this service. On a positive note, another digital health service has emerged in Central Finland called OmaKS.fi which operates alongside the Omaolo service. This service provides an automated chat service and a possibility to contact health care professionals remotely through chat or video calls. Currently, the service is only available to residents of the Jyväskylä region but is intended to expand services to all of Central Finland in the near future. 

MIND THE DIGITAL GAP!

This wonderful world of digitalization offers its citizens access to better, faster and more personalized services and information. Digitalization has quickly become a normal part of our lives and has even become a standard of modern society. However, there are groupings of people who have fallen or are in danger of falling off the digitalization train. Age, language skills, physical restrictions, illness, economic status, and even lack of internet access can cause a gap in digital capabilities. According to the Ministry of Finance (2019), approximately 1 in 5 senior citizens have surrendered their banking information to another person because they are not capable of using digital services independently. This causes a threat to their safety, privacy, autonomy and creates unequal status. Digital services must be made accessible and user friendly to everyone who is willing to use them, regardless of any restriction. The fact that a person lacks digital skills, is not capable or is not willing to use digital services should not cause them to be second class citizens. Advocation for people within the digital gap is important because providing alternative accessibility to services is often costly and overlooked. Solutions for this dilemma should not result in a compromise to the quality and success of services for people with digital restrictions. 

One of the major challenges for people with restrictive digital capabilities is learning to use digital technology. Senior citizens may have never used computers or digital devices in their working life and must learn from the basics. Even if technology is somewhat familiar, digital services evolve and change on a regular basis. Software updates may make a service look totally different and suddenly cause difficulty to the user. 

Those with physical restrictions such as the blind, deaf or otherwise physically impaired may require the use of special tools or aids when using digital services. The use of digital services requires that the person has the financial aid, technology and training required to facilitate the use of digital services. These challenges must be considered when designing digital services to the public. As we become more reliant on digital services It is necessary to continuously provide education and alternative services to ensure the safety and autonomy of everyone.

Sources:

Ministry of Finance 2019. Ministry of Finance publications. Digital Finland-equality for all. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/161486/VM_2019_23_Digitaalinen_Suomi.pdf. Accessed 30.3.2022.

DIGITAL COMPETENCE AND SELF EVALUATION

Digital competence is something that I never really paid much attention to before beginning my studies to become a Master of Digital Health. With the implementation of the GDPR regulations in 2018, it became more evident to the common user of the internet that there is reason to consider how much control we have over our personal information. Most people don’t automatically consider the privacy of their information or feel that the threat of information security is insignificant.  However, this is not the case as I have learned to understand. Regulations such as the GDPR are essential for the integrity and safety of the internet and digital services as we know them today. Furthermore, it is necessary for each digital citizen to become aware of their digital competences. Awareness is the first step to making the right choices and changes to behaviours when using the internet. My current digital competence score looks like this:  

My overall score is 69% which is likely a common score for people of my generation. I still have much to work on towards being a safe and knowledgeable digital citizen. Some things that sparked my attention when completing the competence score test include: storage of data, credibility of information, the structure of the internet, digital communication skills, pros and cons of viral media, and digital identity to name a few.

I will elaborate on a couple topics. The storage of data has become automatic and dispensable. With the availability of cloud storage, it is possible to automatically store your data onto the internet to be accessed whenever and wherever you need it. The availability of cloud space makes it possible to save large amounts of information without it taking up space on personal devices. I have noticed that I no-longer perform regular data clean-ups and enjoy the convenience of depositing my information on a cloud without thinking about the lifecycle of that data. It is just deposited there, likely never to be used again. I have over 25000 images on a digital cloud service that have steadily collected there since 2015. My question is, how sustainable is this type of data storage use? 

Another topic of digital competence that has spiked my interest is digital identity. My digital profiles on social media were originally created to facilitate communication and share my life with my friends and family, many of which live on a different continent. With the increasing knowledge of the privacy threats of social media, I became more and more cautious about what information I shared about my life. Up to the point that I was reluctant to use social media at all. However, I now realize that maintaining and updating a digital identity has a lot of benefits. Because of people sharing their experiences and lifestyles, I am able to access inspiration and information for topics of my personal interest. It is also possible to express one’s self on social media without explicitly offering details about personal information. Social media platforms are very flexible in terms of offering privacy options and have built-in security features. Nevertheless, all information should be shared with critical judgement. A digital identity can be a good way of expressing interests and achievements to future employers, the community and others who share similar interests or lifestyles.

Though the course of these assignments I have learned about the pros and cons of a digitalized society. Digital services provide convenience, faster access to information and services, communication methods, resources, cost effective options and much more. However, we must as digital citizens, mind the consequences and downfalls of digitalization. We must take initiatives to maintain the safety, security, equality, and sustainability of digitalization through responsibilities, conscientiousness, and initiatives so that the digital society sustains the rights, freedoms and well-being of our communities. 

Blogs I have commented on:

https://blogi.savonia.fi/katitynkkynen/

https://blogi.savonia.fi/heinilehtonen/

https://blogi.savonia.fi/martia/