Digital services on everyday life in Finland
In Finland it is possible to handle almost all office matters digitally and it is even desirable. Matters related to for example healthcare, income, pensions and taxation are best and fastest handled digitally.
Kela is national pension and social insurance institution in Finland and various benefits and subsidies are paid by Kela. Kela supports people financially in various life situations, for example during illness, unemployment, parental leave or studies. Personally, I have used Kela’s services many times in my life. I have received study grant, parental allowance and sickness benefit. Kela also pays monthly child benefit to families with children until the child turns 17 years and I currently receive child benefit for three children.
Our family travels a lot, and it is important to have European Health Insurance card which is issued by Kela. The card is valid in public healthcare in EU and EEA countries, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The card provides public healthcare at the same price as residents of the destination country.
OmaKanta is a national healthcare online service and data archive. Records of healthcare are stored there and can be read by the persons themselves 24/7. You must authenticate yourself to the site using strong authentication, which means, for example, using your online banking credentials. OmaKanta is a very useful service, for example you can easily see the doctor’s visit records and treatment instructions if you can’t remember what was discussed with the doctor after the visit. I personally use OmaKanta monthly and check for example the validity of prescriptions.
Keva is Finland’s largest earnings-related pension insurance company. Keva takes care of the pension matters of municipal, state, church and Kela personnel, and its operations are based on the Public Sector Pensions Act and the Keva Act. Keva’s website also needs to be strongly identified. After logging in, you can find your own information, including your minimum retirement age and an estimate of your future old-age pension amount. According to the information found in the system my minimum retirement age is 67 years and 9 months, which means I can retire on May 1, 2061, at the earliest. The whole pension thing seems distant to me because the date is so far away. The retirement age is rising all the time, and I don’t think it’s impossible that my minimum retirement age will also be moved to a later date.
Digital online shopping
Digitalization has hit stores hard because commerce has moved to the internet. I shop online often and it’s because there aren’t many shops in a small town where I live, but also because there are often cheaper prices online. I usually buy a product or service from the official website and not from Amazon for example. This way I can ensure that the product is authentic, and I can receive quality customer service if needed. The product may be cheaper on Amazon, but for some reason the site doesn’t create a convincing enough image that I would want to order from there. Entering payment information on a website doesn’t seem like a secure option to me, even though it probably is. That’s also why I order from official websites, because in my experience, the delivery time is often faster. I’ve ordered products from Amazon twice and they’ve taken weeks to arrive. If I order online, I want to receive the product within a few days. The official websites also provide more detailed information about the products than Amazon. You can get a more reliable picture of the product through the official website than from Amazon. I don’t consider Amazon to be unreliable, but the availability of customer service, the product’s delivery time, and the certainty of the product’s authenticity influence my purchasing decision, even though Amazon may be cheaper. I often compare official retailer websites and choose the cheapest option, rather than a large online shopping platform.
Digital services in the banking sector
Almost all banking services are now handled online and electronically. I can’t think of any situation where a customer would need to come on-site to take care of the matter. Banks have their own mobile applications where you can communicate with an officer and carry out various tasks. Even loan applications can now be signed electronically. The customer can purchase and manage the services they want independently online. When I started in the industry, matters related to investments or loans, for example, were handled face-to-face with the client. Nowadays, customers can buy and sell their investments and make and sign loan applications in the online bank. Some banks have completely closed branches and customer service is entirely online. Digitalization has made work easier, and electronic signature is an excellent tool.
Digital gap
Even though digitalization is a great thing, it also has its risks and challenges. A large part of the population is involved in digitalization, but there are groups of people who are easily left out. The elderly and disabled are at risk of being left without services. I live in a small municipality where services are very limited and taking care of things requires the use of digital services. It is especially difficult to handle things in situations like this if, for one reason or another, you don’t know how to use digital services. For example, dealing with tax matters or Kela matters here is impossible face-to-face. Elderly people and people with disabilities living in remote areas are in a very vulnerable position because services are constantly being cut. The digitalization of healthcare is also challenging for those in a vulnerable position, because the fastest way to access health centers is currently only through electronic services. Some healthcare services no longer even have telephone service but only respond to contacts made via the internet. Contacts from young and working-aged people are easy to handle, but for the elderly and disabled, this situation can, at worst, lead to a lack of help and services.
Digital Competence Test
I did digital competence test, and results show I have great ability for information, communication, production and safety. The result was over 70% in all four areas. My strongest areas were cooperation and participation, and identity management. The area that needs the most work is data storage. I am a very accustomed user of digital services and digital tools are an everyday part of my work.
Self evaluation
While writing the assignment, I realized how huge a part of life digitalization is today. It is almost impossible to cope with everyday matters if you don’t keep up with digital developments. When I stopped to think about my daily amount of digitalization, it is constant and everywhere. I grew up with digitalization and I couldn’t imagine life without it. I’m so used to do all things electronically and online that I don’t even miss personal service. I was born in the 1990s and grew up with technology and digital development, and I feel it is a meaningful part of my life and that is why it is so easy for me. The generation younger than me doesn’t even know the time before digitalization and I feel that my life is a little richer in a way because I also know the time before that. I also understand that people older than me may have difficulty keeping up with digital developments. I often help my grandparents take care of things digitally and I have compassion for the elderly. Digitalization is incredibly beneficial, I know that because I lived in a time before it, but I also know that it brings with it a lot of risks and challenges, both in working life and in everyday life. From the point of view of learning, this task helped me to understand that digitalization is not just technology. It is a much wider issue, which is essentially related to social rights and responsibility.
Commented blogs:
Hello! This was a very clear and engaging blog post, and I really liked how you connected digital services to your own everyday life. The concrete examples of using Kela, OmaKanta, banking services, and online shopping made digital citizenship feel very real and practical. I also found your reflections on the digital gap especially important, as they highlighted how difficult everyday life can become for elderly or disabled people when services are mainly digital. Your self-evaluation added nice depth to the post and showed good awareness of how digitalisation shapes different generations in different ways. Overall, this was a thoughtful and well-balanced reflection on both the benefits and challenges of digitalisation in Finland.
I can relate about growing up with the technology and knowing something how things were before. I also think it gives me a point of view that is valuable specially when teaching others with technology.
It was nice to read about your field and technology. I can remember many times waiting my parents in the bank when I was a kid and now I can’t even remember when I have visited the bank last time! I’m so used to using the mobile app for banking that it is difficult to remember how the things were before. It must have taken a lot of time to do all the banking face-to-face so I’m glad things are now smoothly done without visits to bank.