E.T. phone home
I once attended a workshop about making a positive contribution in the world. We were asked to think of a problem we would like to solve to make the world a better place. Someone shared that their idea would be to get youth off of their phones. It prompted a workshop-wide eruption of opinions on the dangers of technology. How phones are eroding human relationships, how kids are no longer learning to connect and empathise and communicate. One participant said she’d heard that kids are losing the ability to use facial expressions because they had replaced actually smiling using their actual mouths with adding little smiley emojis at the end of their online messages. Quietly in my chair I thought ‘clearly you haven’t gotten caught on an after-school train recently; the vocal chords and facial expressions of school kids are fully intact.’
However, I do count myself as one of those people who is much more creative at imagining the range of threats and problems that accompany advances in technology, but struggles to see the benefits. It took me a long while to feel comfortable with the advent of smartphones. Gradually, reluctantly, I came to accept that smartphones were here to stay, and occasionally, I would admit that they were making my life better. When I visited Canberra to apply for my Finnish residency permit, I am not sure I could have made my way out of that maze without the help of Google maps and GPS. (Prompting me also to wonder if the radial design and changing street names of Canberra are a deliberate ploy to increase the population by simply trapping tourists into becoming residents.)
And then I moved to Finland. Never have I felt so grateful for advances in technology. Never have I wondered with such awe, ‘how did anyone survive overseas in the 90s, how?!'
In the supermarket, we’re at our most efficient while holding two phones with a shopping list, Google, Google translate, and a Finnish-English dictionary app open. Thanks to my language learning app, I had learned the words ‘debit’, ‘card’ and ‘only’ before arriving in Finland, saving me the embarrassment of attempting to use self-checkout without a debit card on hand.
More importantly, I can take a photo of a silly product label and send it to my friends. I can message a friend to complain about how hard it is to find bread crumbs (literally called 'biscuit flour', so a difficult translation). I can call my mother to ask if bicarb soda is the same thing as baking soda. Once home, I can find blogs and YouTube videos that help me understand how to cook the assortment of ingredients I’ve managed to successfully locate at the supermarket. I can take to Facebook to complain about the price of leeks. I can digitally pop in on an friend's dinner party via Skype. Once all the Australians are asleep in bed, I can listen to a playlist my brother has created on our shared music account.
Wherever I am, whatever the time, technology is helping me connect to the people I love. I am living in a future that I was once so fearful of, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
