You’re sitting at happy hour with your go-to gals, catching up over half-price frosé. “I love this dress,” you tell the pal to your right. “Thanks! I got it on super-sale at Anthropologie.” “So cute.” Just like that, you move on to the next topic.
Later that night, you get home and open Instagram. You know you shouldn’t be looking at your phone so close to bedtime, but you can’t avoid the siren song of the explore page. Nestled between vacation pics and gym selfies (groan), you see it: An ad for Anthropologie—a brand you do not follow—touting its current sale on, you guessed it, dresses.
It’s harmless enough (the dress in the photo is actually really chic and you make a note to see if they have it in your size), but it makes you wonder: Is my phone listening to me at all times?
Depends on who you ask. The social media sites you think are listening to you, of course, categorically deny audio spying. Reddit sleuths, on the other hand, are convinced that the tech giants in Silicon Valley are obsessively tracking our every move and word.