Imagine if Instagram and social media closed every day at 6pm like a shop. We would all be forced to meet up and speak to each other in real life, to be present with our families, to work out, to go outside, to read, to make art, music... what a drag, right?

It’s been 3 years since Steven Bartlett a British entrepreneur and co-founder of SocialChain posted this tweet and since then it’s been constantly resurfacing on the internet. More and more studies are being conducted on the average time that we spend in front of some kind of screen and the findings are not getting any more flattering, especially after COVID. We could say that most of that time is mindless scrolling and browsing through memes and TIK TOK videos however what this also indicates is that a vast majority of what we consider meaningful interactions are taking place on some part of the internet. Business, trading, artistic expression, politics, social encounters, romance - the internet has it. Our attention, time and energy are being highly capitalized on, the effects of which are directly impacting the city and the way we experience public spaces.

Therefore, to us urban technologists the way the digital and the physical are interwoven has become an essential part of understanding the city and the way we citizens interact with it. And as this interconnection is becoming stronger and the digital world is becoming more and more indistinguishable from the physical one this discussion is getting hotter and hotter. To tell us more about this I have with me Aida Hassan, Kish Buhari and Maria Magkavalli, 3 urban technologists that felt that it was high time we brought this to the surface and took a closer look at not only where we are but also at what’s coming. And you guessed it, it’s quite meta.