*GSM = the way we name smartphones in Belgium, GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communication (one of those Belgian absurdities)
MY GRANDPA CAN REPAIR ANYTHING BUT NOT GSM
Etienne, worked in the Peugeot factory for decades. Peugeot is a French car manufacturer which used to produce automobiles in Sochaux, near Etienne’s village. He turned out to be a car manufacturer genius, a creative and curious mind with magical hands. Thanks to his talent and hard work (I mean the kind of work where you have to wake up at 3am), he traveled to Iran, China, Nigeria at a time when nobody did.
Etienne is now retired. But his creative genius flame is not fade away. Everyone comes to his garage with a bag full of silly gadgets to repair. As a child I watched him repair zillions of objects feeling intrigued by his gigantic hands, full of scars. Today, I see his hands as tools, and a testimony of his creative repair genius.
This got me wondering if the GSM repair shops popping out in my neighborhood in Brussels were driven by the same creative genius as my grandpa. So I went on and did a quick tour of my neighborhood GSM repair shops, asked them a few questions and took a few portraits of them (check my figma or insta if you want to see the pictures).
A JOURNEY AROUND MY NEIGHBORHOOD GSM REPAIR SHOPS
This is how I found myself, mid-march 2023, jumping on my bike, talking to GSM repair shops owners in my neighborhood.
At first they were skeptical. So I printed a cute booklet explaining my approach (check my YouTube channel if you want to listen to what they had to say, WARNING it is in French).
- Who are the people repairing your GSM (background story, motivation and repair station)? Unsurprisingly they were all men. Most of the time, proper self made entrepreneurs, who struggled to get here. They run their business on their own, and learn how to repair GSM, PCs through real life-experiences. They first got into repairing to improve their gaming performance, or simply because they were part of what they call the “geek culture”. Despite the need to always keep up to date with new smartphones, new chips, their understanding of GSM and PCs is intuitive
- What makes GSM repairing different from a computer or another piece of hardware ? I’ve skimmed over this question, wasn’t that interesting in the end
- Do GSM repair shops become learning hubs? YES, YES AND YES, especially for ageing people. In every shop I went to, the repair man or the shop owner organized informal discussions with (mostly) ageing people. They took one hour to answer every question the customer had on emails, the web, settings, the battery…
INFORMAL AND CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES
GSM repair shops are dealing with ageing people left behind without any real knowledge of how their phones or the web works. Hence, not only repair shops are education centers, but they also act as an emotional support for ageing people who feel powerless. But, this is only the tip of the iceberg and it might concerns all of us (not only your grandparents).
Let’s take a step back.
Broadly, a society built on technological complexity has to deal with a rising knowledge asymmetry enhanced by a power imbalance. Ageing people are the first visible victims of an unadaptive response to such phenomenon. One adaptive answer might be to have more places like GSM repair shops, where you can learn, ask questions and have a meaningful social engagement.
Let’s dream.
For instance, I see a near future with places or community centers, where we casually talk about how platform recommender systems work through a critical lens with people who embody their ideas (who are not platform representatives of course)
If you think I should go to more GSM repair shops I am here @margelacool
╰(✿´⌣`✿)╯♡
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@margauxvtr1157/videos
Figma https://www.figma.com/file/AhFyjF7aIbtN9k84jUVHQz/Qui-r%C3%A9pare-ton-GSM?node-id=0-1
Insta https://www.instagram.com/margentique_/
Credit to Emilie Lor/@_kknomos for the speedy snail (go check her work now)
margelacool 
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