"The bartender's first hoot is so clean and high-pitched it sounds piped in from the ceiling speakers - a single whooo that slices through the post-punk and clinking glassware. My friend Michael jolts on his barstool, beer sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "Did you hear that owl?" he whispers. "Not an owl," I say, matter-of-factly, wiping condensation from my glass before it drips onto the bar."
"Filling the screen of his iPhone 16 Pro Max, clad in a scuffed clear case, sits a sponsored post: "Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month. Donate Today." Michael's voice drops into a register I don't usually hear outside ghost stories. "We literally just talked about Tourette's. How did I get this ad already?" I manage a laugh that's only half genuine. "Your phone isn't listening to you." Even as I say it, I know how razor-thin the reassurance sounds."
"So if my phone isn't listening, then what is it? It would be eerie if it weren't so commonplace. But underlying the well-appreciated utility, there has always been a gnawing sense of unease. It's not just the phones themselves, but the sweeping online-ness of our lives, from our social media postings to our Amazon purchases, from our Snap Maps to our Google searches and ChatGPT queries. Technology knows us intimately, often too close for comfort."
A bartender's vocal tic prompts the narrator and a friend to identify Tourette's during casual conversation. Shortly afterward, a sponsored Instagram post about Tourette Syndrome appears on the friend's phone, triggering suspicion that devices might be eavesdropping. The narrator offers a half-hearted reassurance that phones are not listening, while admitting the comfort is fragile. The incident serves as an example of broader anxieties about pervasive data collection. Social media activity, purchase histories, location sharing, searches, and AI interactions combine to produce detailed profiles. That technological intimacy feels useful yet disquietingly invasive.
Read at CNET
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