How technology is changing our lives
The motivation behind this piece started from reflections about my trip through West Africa in 2017. Also, there is a substantial influence drawn from my experience using N26 (An online bank that started in Berlin). You can see the imprints from start to finish. As usual, enjoy!
To suggest that today´s technology has changed our lives dramatically and influenced the way we do things can no longer be considered a subject for debate as the evidence is quite visible in our daily activities. For instance, if we compare the way we shopped, how we communicated and built our relationships in the last decade, we can see how technological advancements and discoveries have been able to influence these vital aspects of our day to day living.
From fin-tech to lifestyle and leisure, we can agree that technology has been able to help put all the information we need right at our fingertips as well as erased geographical borders and distance. Gone are the days where one would have had to travel hundreds of miles, spending valuable time and resources just to end up in a long queue in a banking hall to carry out a bank transaction or receive financial service. Through the advancements in communication technologies, people can shop and make payment in real time from the comfort of their living room. Today, smartphones with internet facilities have replaced the conventional banking hall with virtual ones. Still in doubt? check out: https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/20/european-mobile-banking-startup-n26-raises-160-million-from-tencent-and-allianz/
In November 2017, I travelled to Nigeria to visit my family and friends. While there, I discovered that many of the people I had hoped to see were no longer living in the same towns or cities where they previously lived. A couple of them had moved too far away to other cities or countries, making it physically impossible to meet with them. But thanks to my smartphone with internet facility, I was able to reach out to most of them and have skype conversations with those who lived far away. I also was able to carry out several banking transactions via mobile banking without getting close to the four walls of a banking hall. A decade ago, this would have been impossible in many African Countries. But remember, none of these would have been possible without the aid of today’s technological advancements in fin-tech and internet-enabled mobile technology.
Also considering our lifestyle and leisure activities, one can readily agree that today, we no longer need to carry books if we don’t want to. Smartphones, tablets, and e-readers have made it easier for us to take hundreds of books along when travelling without breaking our backs. During my trip through West Africa, I read several books from my tablets while I went through several cities, towns and countries to visit friends and family. For me, the task of taking along hard copies of several books on such a journey would have naturally discouraged the idea of reading. Today as I sit in my office in Berlin Germany, I still wonder - how would it have been possible for me to have carried the hard copies of over 25 books while making my trips? But thanks to technology, I guess that was one less worry for me.