Have you noticed that the internet is spying on you? We joke about it, but have you been met with ads on social media shortly after you were talking about something, something that you haven’t ever looked at or shopped for previously?

Have you noticed that your electronic devices seem to be listening even when you aren’t using them? We’ve seen or heard examples where the “assistant” we willingly allowed in our homes have responded without prompting.

Freak you out a little?

How do airlines know to send me an email reminder about booking a flight I have looked at on their webiste but didn’t actually log into the website? I was just browsing for curiousity sake. Dreaming. But not 30 minutes after looking I receive an email asking or reminding me about booking the flight. Weird?

The fact is, any sense of privacy we have these days is an illusion. We like to assume we have privacy but in reality we don’t. We are beind spied on everywhere we go. Our phones track us. Our apps track us. Our computers track us. Our watches track us. Our tvs, appliances, gaming systems, streaming services, security cameras, cars, etc etc etc track us. Our spending is tracked. Our health is tracked. Our eating is tracked. Our exercise (or lack thereof, in my case) is tracked.

Can you name something that isn’t tracked? I bet you have a difficult coming up with a list of things that are free of tracking these days.

Sure, we allow it. We invite it onto our bodies, into our homes. We have asked for it to a degree. But at what point do we look at all of it and say enough is enough?

We trade privacy for convenience. Plain and simple.

Our assumption is that we have privacy and we have to blindly trust that it won’t be violated by the things we allow into our lives. We all know it is being violated though. We all know they’re lying to us.

So why do we keep doing it?