The smartphone has transformed life for better and for worse

Often, I look at the number of transactions I make through my phone in a day and wonder how people survived during the Stone Age. Please note that in this case, the Stone Age refers to just about two decades ago, and I was a fully functional adult who paid her taxes diligently.  

The year was 2000 AD when I got my first phone. It was a (then) impressive and massive piece of technology with an aerial, like the radios back then, and I, like many people back then, could not afford to run the phone. It was like owning a car that spends most of its time not on the road, but in the parking, and not because you do not need it, but because you cannot afford to run it.  

Phones, for most of us, were pure aesthetics. Like cars, they were a perfect symbol of ‘fake it till you make it’. To be honest, though, not many could afford it and we had to adjust and readjust and cut our budgets to purchase an era that did not have lipa mdogo mdogo or instant phone loans. Often, we bought the phone one month, and the ridiculously expensive SIM card would follow the next month.  

Buying those phones came with hidden charges as well. I needed to buy bigger handbags to accommodate mine because it was the size of a walkie-talkie.  

Like turning on the car engine to keep the battery charged and rust off, we kept checking, no less in front of people who did not have phones, if anyone had called, even though we knew that nobody had. It was expensive to both make and receive calls. 

Soon after the turn of the millennium, I moved to the United Kingdom. As you do, I often needed to send money home either as black tax or to my own bank account. Phones were not as advanced, so sending money was something we scheduled to do as you had to go to a bank, queue, fill in some forms, deposit the money and trust the holy spirit that the money would get there before the person who needed it met their maker.  

Then, high tech happened, and now we are all, for lack of a better word, so lazy. And reckless with money. It is scary, I almost miss the days of wasted hours to get stuff done. I suppose that was how homo sapiens felt when they graduated from using bows and arrows to guns for hunting. Oh, wait, bows and arrows are still being used, the same way there are people still queuing in banks for transactions.   

Having money so easily accessible on the phone, having tens of money apps that do not require you to acquire the signature of your dead grandparent to get a loan has, in my opinion, driven a lot of us to near-poverty. It gives the illusion of having a lot of money while we are actually not laughing all the way to the banks, but the banks are laughing at us.  

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See, when you needed to do banking and literally waste two hours withdrawing money for your weekly use, you had to have a budget, and you had to be careful about your spending because not only did you not want to waste extra time, you were conscious about the spending.  

Technology has also made us disorganised. We are not following strict budgets. We have forgotten that budgets were not just for limiting banking time; they are meant to keep you on your toes. That one can go to a bar with the intention of spending two thousand shillings but end up tripling that amount is bad, bad news. 

The holiday season is here. There will be the lucky ones who receive bonuses, thus they do not have to worry about encroaching on their monthly budgets, but the majority will be pushing the limits. They will be shouting YOLO, you only live once, but January bills do not understand money euphemism. Living beyond means is just that. 

This, unfortunately, is not a financial advice column. I am just here to remind you that, as much as we love technology, as much as we have embraced it, it is not always good for your finances.