The first day of the workshop is over and most of the invited guests have joined The Programmable City team for pre-dinner drinks at a restaurant close to Maynooth Castle. For once, it’s not raining and we’re sitting outside. The professor opposite me is twirling her wrist. Ten minutes later, she’s still rotating her arm, though a little less enthusiastically. Curiosity eventually wins out.

‘Is there something wrong?’ I ask.

‘No, why?’

‘You seem a little agitated.’ I point to her arm.

‘Oh, that. I’m doing my steps.’

‘What?’

‘I’m fooling my Fitbit into thinking I’m doing my steps.’

‘Why?’

‘So I don’t ruin my stats.’

‘Why don’t you just go for a walk? It’s still half an hour until dinner. You could do a loop round the campus, or go along the canal.’

She shrugs her shoulders. ‘I wanted to come for drinks.’

‘You could always go for a walk afterwards. It’ll still be light.’

‘I’ll be too tired then. Anyway, 15 more minutes and I should reach my quota.’

‘But you’ll know that you’ve juked your stats.’

‘Yes, but there won’t be a blip in them.’

‘Are you part of the quantified-self movement then?’ I ask, thinking she wants to maintain good stats for when she compares them with others.

‘No, no. I’m just trying to get myself in shape. Walk 10,000 steps a day.’

‘So you’re not sharing your data with anyone?’

‘God, no.’ She laughs. ‘I’m the only person who looks at it.’

‘So why are you creating false data?’ I’m genuinely perplexed. If you’re the only person who’s going to see your self-created data, why would you juke your own stats? It makes little sense to me.

‘Because I don’t want to mess up my data. I’ve hit the target every day for the past three weeks.’

‘Except you won’t have done today. And even if your data says you did, you know that you didn’t. What difference does it make?’

She shrugs. ‘The blip will be annoying.’

‘And Fitbit will know as well. Once you upload your data they’ll know your step rate is too fast and that you were stationary.’

‘Yes, but that’s fine. It’ll just be an anomaly in my data. And I don’t really care what they think. Anyway, I could be on a treadmill.’