I'd heard it said once or twice that our smart phones can listen to us, and I've read what I believed to be a couple of fringe-y headlines claiming the same. Nah, I thought.
This morning the granite repair guys came to my house to measure the cracked and crumbling granite around my kitchen sink. My faucet is shot too, and I have a new one waiting in the wings. "Look, Pierre," I said, "I bought the faucet you suggested." There was some discussion then about whether or not I'd bought the right faucet and if it could be installed without the escutcheon--or if I'd need a different escutcheon if the size of the new faucet was different from the old faucet. Escutcheon, I said. Escutcheon, Pierre said. We said it twice, maybe three or four times. Escutcheon.
I went for a walk after that. Took a yoga class. Showered. Ate lunch. Did a bunch of chores around the house and yard. I finally sat down to work on the last few pages of the first draft of my book around 1:45. I googled something about women and shame, birthmothers and shame, the effects of shame, and clicked on the link to the article shown above.
Check out the ad. Those are escutcheons in case you don't know what an escutcheon is.
I google a lot of things. Weird things that might give someone pause. I'm a writer. And in my ordinary life I google things like best non-toxic cookware and most opaque yoga pants. I google how to tell one type of gull from another and if cassava root is really gluten free. Ten days ago I googled kitchen faucets, and yes for a day or so faucets showed up in the ads on my Facebook page and wherever. I get that. I don't even mind it since I hate to shop and kinda like it if something I'm looking for magically appears. But I didn't google anything at all today until I googled the stuff about about shame.
So shame on me for not knowing that all this while my phone has been listening. And your creepy phone is probably listening to you. I've turned off my microphone in Safari. Maybe I can put a pillow over its face too.
5 comments:
I just can't care about everything. I surrender. I don't give a flying foo if my phone is listening to me. I imagine it will become as bored as I am listening to my own thoughts.
Well, I did just go shut my mic off. I mean...that's ridiculous.
But I'm sort of with Elizabeth too. It's all too much.
And yet, creepy as fuck.
Definitely creepy as fuck. Somewhere, the NSA is compiling all my phone hears and knows about me to be used against me later. And I pay for this spy to live in my pocket. Where's my tinfoil hat...
I was talking in Spanish about perfumes. I never googled perfumes at all. Guess what ads I got to see?
Yes, this has definitely happened to me again and again. So very weird.
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