Algorithmically mediated encounters in the public realm through young adults’ use of Strava

This paper reveals how Strava, a social fitness platform, operates infrastructurally to mediate how encounters unfold in urban public spaces. Using encounters as an analytical frame, we examine how Strava’s algorithmically mediated encounters shape users’ experiences of public life and feelings of connection, and at times, loneliness. Drawing on ten in-depth interviews with young adult Strava users in Sydney, we show that Strava algorithmic systems shape who becomes discoverable in urban spaces, how fleeting co-presence is recognized and sustained, and how users relate not only to others but also to their own ‘datafied selves’. These processes produce three interrelated modalities of encounter – encounters with others, encounters with the self, and encounters within social feeds – each of which reconfigures publicness of urban spaces by extending visibility, recognition, and attention across the physical and digital realms. The paper offers a nuanced and infrastructural understanding of encounters in a platform-mediated era, showing how Strava mediates and reshapes urban social life through digitally mediated infrastructures.