I think my first touch with the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA) was while I was studying my bachelor degree. I got housing allowance and study grant from them. Different health related cards example KELA or European health care cards are granted by them. I haven’t had the European health care card before so I ordered it now. It was really simple I only needed to sign in and confirm to what address it should be sent. Nowadays I example pay students’ health care payment through KELA and get payment support for prescript medication. My own health care information also above-mentioned prescriptions can be found and are provided by OmaKanta. Any information of any health appointment is stored there. Usually, the information example laboratory results can be checked there even before they have time to call you about it. For me the most convenient thing is that I can renew my prescriptions there. As I am allergic to wasps and need to carry EpiPen with me all the time, I also have to have valid prescription all the time. In both of these services I signed in with strong identification using my bank ID.
My pension information I checked from Ilmarinen where I signed in also using strong identification. It told me the earliest I can retire is at age of 67 and at the moment my pension would be 456€ per month and if I would retire at age of 70, I would get 503€ per month. The retire age keeps rising all the time and future will show us if we in fact will ever be able to reach that.
Online shopping – everything within our reach
Virtual services are also different kinda shops offered to as online. Well known digital shops like globally known amazon or local verkkokauppa.com are usually really liable. They are so widely used that any problems will appear and be solved immediately. In my opinion these big shops are best when you want to evaluate the product or service and don’t have enough knowledge on your own. Recommendation from other costumers or consumers has always been one of the main selling points for anything. And with digitalization this has become even more critical as anyone can tell their opinion or experience to everyone to see or find out. I think where the positive reviews are good for the products or the shop, the more critical or even negative ones are the ones consumer should check when thinking of buying the product or service. This goes also when example booking for accommodation. I have used this a lot from website booking.com to see the reason behind the worst reviews for the place. Example for me something like “there was no smart tv” has no value compared to “was on a loud street and the room smelled moldy”. The revies are usually liable because they have a system where only real customers can leave the review. What it comes to prices offered, sadly, these big shops usually give better sales than the local shops. However, from the local shop you usually get the product quicker and can see it before making the purchase decision. My biggest problem with these big shops is that their selection is so wide that it’s hard to find a product if you haven’t made the exact decision before hand. And the wide variation provides wide variation in quality as well.
Quality wisely the down side of online shopping is that we can reach products anywhere around the world. May sound like a good thing, but example Chinese markets take advantage of this. They offer low quality copies of popular products and the price is ridiculously low. Western customers are hooked by the price but don’t understand the production and sustainability behind it. They use cheap material which includes chemicals that are harmful for health and usually banded in Europe, the lifetime and duration of the product is of course short, the industrial working conditions are most likely poor and impact to the environment in production and transportation is huge. Still, these online shop like Temu are well known and popular. In conclusion popularity doesn’t mean a good thing.
I prefer to use shops that only offer quality stuff like for outdoor clothing and equipment I use Varuste.net. But even then, I may check if the same product is cheaper somewhere else. Usually, Varuste.net gives the best price anyway and they have some sales all the time. In addition, when purchasing something from them you always get this “VIP customer” -title for one year and you get 5% of from everything. Also Varuste.net parcels come remotely quick, even here in north and they have easy and flexible return policy. You have 60 days free return to any product not used and in their original condition and you can return it without any cost example by Posti or Matkahuolto parcel machines.
Virtual services – in our control
The virtual service I used most at work is called Procountor. It’s a tool for companies’ financial management. We use Procountor for making sales orders and offers, confirmations and invoices for customers. It’s convenient tool as it keeps everything in one place from the contact information of the customer to payment processing. With a new customer I can make a clear sales offer or confirmation and just few clicks changed it to an invoice. I can then send the invoice by pdf (easily downloaded from the side), electronically or by mail. If the correct information is there the tool will do it for me. Procountor is a wide service and there is lot information I do not know anything about. Because of this I still sometimes struggle to find the right thing I am searching for. Otherwise, the service is well developed and easy to use, even changes afterwards are easy to do.
As we can see virtual services are nowadays part of our everyday life. We don’t even notice how much we use them and how depended we are of internet, smartphones and laptops. Signing in to any of these earlier mentioned virtual services you need strong identification example provided my bank, which is again virtual service. There are different alternatives for the strong identification log in and you don’t necessary need smartphone for that but even the alternatives are digital. Some of these services are hard to reach or may not be even available anyway else than virtually. To reach these services other way you then need the office of the service provider. However, because everything is now virtual, these offices are rarer and example here in Ruka in many cases you would need to travel to a bigger city like Oulu which is over 3 hours away. Of course, some are available also by phone but the hours to use this phone line (or the office it self) are of course more limited compared to the virtual services which are available 24/7. While calling you may also need to wait long time, several minutes to hours, to reach the customer service and in addition the waiting may cost something.
So, if a person chooses not to use virtual services, they also then choose that they have harder access to all the information. Of course, not everybody chooses this digital-cap their self as example elderly people may lack the skill and/or capability to use the virtual services. Also, digital equipment like phones and computers are expensive tools and not everyone is wealthy enough own one. However, government or municipalities must offer these services or help with them for those in need. In addition, people who choose not to use virtual services or to be reliant of them can be better prepared and manage better, if there would be possible block to get in touch with these virtual services or if in some reason the whole virtual world would collapse. All in all, I think people who choose not to use virtual services may have better handle of their life as they are not so depended of the digital world.
Digital world – who knows what
I did the Digital Competence Test to evaluate my knowledge and use of the digital world. Summary of the results of the test can be seen above. I was evaluated as advanced. Not so surprisingly I got biggest rate in “critical evaluation” and I am really pleased of that, as I see that one of the most important areas. I example always evaluate the truthness of the information found online and compare the information from multiple sources. On my opinion I can also easily recognize when example email is valid or scam. The second at top ranking was “social awareness”, which again does not surprise me at all. I am good at reading people outside digital world and have developed quite well in digital world as well. I am good at understanding the emotions, thoughts, and attitudes behind a person even online. As I am a sales person and do most of my sales remotely using email, this quality is a benefit of mine. I know how to speak to others politely when needed. This is as well something I have get good feed back from boss of mine. However, I am determined and quite straightforward and also know how to handle example difficult customers without giving the power to them. And from that the top third as “media choice” didn’t come as a shock either. As a sales person I also see what kind of media format should be used and when and what is the best way to approach example customer in what matter.
The top three on the lowest score was “automation”, “production and sharing” and “storage”. I think I evaluated my self a bit too critically in these and think the ranking was lower than it is in reality. Some of the results made me see that my knowledge and skills are higher than said there. As the texts were speaking about capability to learn stuff I actually already know and use everyday. The description of the whole score also already gave me on idea that i have downgrade myself.
So really typical Finnish way I underestimate myself. And once again we can see that even when we have these digital services and evaluations, they are not hundred precent reliable as they rely on humanity, in this case my own evaluation of my knowledge.
I think the most enjoyable and educating or improving part of learning is reflecting with other people. In away studying remotely has reduced that. However, here been able to read others thought in a blog format is just giving that back some way at least. And this should be used more. Reading others thoughts woke up my own opinions and made the writing and pondering easier. In addition the Digital Competence Test was a good learning experience and made me see where I should increase my knowledge.