Proof Big Brother Is Listening

I’ve never believed that whole thing about, “Big Brother Watching” or in this case, listening. But reality keeps proving me wrong. On Friday, my wife sent me a text that the cool office chair she uses just broke.  

She loves the chair and even her co-workers like it. They were always trying to use it. You can’t tell from the picture but the support comes from a series of bungee cords. There are no pressure points. She was on the phone talking with a co-worker when one of the plastic pieces that holds the end of the bungee just snapped.  

Not long after that little plastic piece broke and my wife sent a text asking if I could fix her chair, an ad like the one above popped up on my phone showing me where to buy a chair like that. I didn't get a screen shot of that but it was an ad like this with the EXACT SAME bungee chair she just broke.  Now, that’s a pretty uncommon chair. And it was an ad I had NEVER seen until today. How does that happen?  I was waiting for the same ad to pop up on my phone so I could grab a screen shot but, it hasn't.  ...Because they're listening.  

We were watching the Mecham auto auction on TV recently and both of us were admiring the ‘67 Shelby Mustang that was up for sale. They usually go for $1 million or more so we just watch, dream for a minute and then move on. Now my cell phone has been showing me things like this.  

The ad says, “Find the perfect car for you and your budget”. Well, no. My budget couldn’t buy the door handles for a ‘67 Shelby Mustang, but more importantly – GET OUT OF MY HOUSE AND QUIT LISTENING!!!  

I recently found an article and went through all of the steps to turn OFF the microphone connected to Google, Facebook and some others on my iPhone but something didn’t work.  

My wife is going to Las Vegas on a business trip for some medical coder training. She and her boss were on the phone talking about shows they might want to hit when they get some free time during the trip. Some of the shows are a little pricey but they thought they might try the SeaQuest. Within an hour, I had a SeaQuest Las Vegas ad on my phone asking if I wanted to buy tickets.  

Just try it out by doing a little test this week. Keep saying Chainsaw around your phone over the next couple of weeks. Maybe even make up a story that your wife really wants a chainsaw for Valentine’s Day. I just want to see if we can make a pink chainsaw show up on your phone.  

I haven’t seen this so far but I wonder if someday we will see a FORMER Google or Facebook employee on the news who says, “Yes, I worked at Google for years and my job was to listen in on people’s conversations”.