There are increasing reports that young people, particularly Gen Z, are creating an “offline revolution” by trying to spend more time with others in-person and experimenting with older, physical technologies, like vinyl records. Those reporting this interest in the offline world suggest that the increasing prevalence of AI slop, or posts that are made by AI and feel to audiences as though they serve little creative purpose, is part of this change. Others suggest that they feel trapped by their smartphones and the algorithms that are designed to make us spend as much time online as possible.
Despite this phenomenon, it is also clear that the digital is here to stay, in part because these technologies can make our lives much easier. Navigating is much easier with an automatically updating application than a map, although it impairs spatial memory. Mobile devices are now the most popular way to bank, and in some parts of the world are the only way to access financial services. There has also been increasing interest in the so-called smart city, an urban area that uses the Internet of Things (IoT) and data collection to “help improve quality of life as well as the sustainability and efficiency of city operations”. The aim of these cities are to integrate people and technologies in a way that makes data collection much easier and use these data insights to make changes to the urban environment, often in real time.
As residents of many cities in China or Singapore or London or New York will note, there are real benefits to integrating technology into the city landscape, particularly when it comes to public transportation. We can now see in real-time when the train is coming or if it is delayed and use phones and other devices to pay without considering additional tickets. In some ways, the development towards integrating these systems seems inevitable just because they are so much more convenient. At the same time, this integration of technology and transportation should be seen as a political choice, in that by making offline options like cash or physical cards slower or more expensive means that there is a technological momentum to force a specific lifestyle on citizens.
The first question we must ask about these digital cities is about who is excluded. Despite the increasing popularity and uptake of digital technologies, there are still many people around the world who do not have access to a smartphone or the internet. In addition to this, even in wealthy countries, there are people who cannot or do not use mobile technologies for financial or social reasons. There are also questions to be asked about the type of technology that people have access to: for example, an older smartphone may not be compatible with the appropriate app, but this smartphone is all someone can afford. There are also people who do not have the skills or training required to use certain forms of technology, which can also limit their engagement in smart cities.
A change to digital cities could lead to major shifts in economic and political power as a result of these existing inequalities. The more data that is collected, the more responsive the smart city will be. This means that the benefits of the smart city will be felt more in areas where people are more willing or able to share data through the IoT and their devices. There are already concerns about residual segregation and spatial mismatch that can occur as a result of these inequalities becoming entrenched.
Another issue is that there are serious concerns about the inequality of how this data can be used. It is well-established that facial recognition, for example, does not work as well with non-white faces, which has led to people being falsely accused of crimes and excluded from certain public spaces. If we rely on this technology to get into and around a city, this means that non-white people may have less access to these spaces, again contributing to segregation in cities.
Evidently, one of the most pressing issues is the privacy issue, as a smart city will require the collection of vast amounts of data from individuals about their movements. There are concerns that this can be easily stolen or misused by nefarious actors who do not have the public’s best interests at heart. Others suggest that the smart city itself can be hacked, meaning that the city can be targeted by outsiders who want to cause “serious disruption in critical services”.
The issue of inequality may also go the other way, in that people on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum could face higher pressures to connect to the smart city and use their devices. Going offline in the way that Gen Z are experimenting with has already been called “the new luxury” or a status symbol because these technologies are made more necessary for those without personal assistants or other advantages that can help them navigate. One article suggests that people who have to pay their own electric bill and report to their bosses are likely to find it difficult to stay away from the devices that help them do this. The takeaway is that going offline is an active choice that certain people can make, while others cannot.
In the case of the smart city, then, a person with a private driver who has the smartphone required to enter the city and does not need to use public transportation is more likely to be able to shun this technology, which could bring with it some significant benefits in terms of privacy and the issues with social media that much has been written about. The challenge of the smart city in terms of equality and access is, then, that it may make the right to be offline as something that is either impossible, or only possible to a select few.
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