Decoding the gurgles in our mind

I can’t understand this fuss about being watched all the time. If you spend 70 per cent of your day staring at a screen, you can’t complain if the screen wants to get something out of it. Being watched or followed is not such a bad thing. As Descartes might have said, I am being watched, therefore I am.

In fact, there is comfort in knowing that someone somewhere cares enough to keep track of you. It is the same comfort that infants get when they realise an adult – a parent or nanny – is always around, waiting to interpret their merest gurgles and convert sounds into milk or nappies or noise-makers that distract from either of them.

"Big Brother (or Sister) is Watching You" is not so much a threat as indication that the retail world is always around, here suggesting a book, there a plot of land, and so on. Recently I was idly thinking about getting myself a pair of running shoes when the phone rang and a voice gave me advice on which pair to buy. It began fighting with another voice which had a different list, while a third voice cut in to suggest that I shouldn’t waste money on shoes but contribute to a charity instead.

It is a version of the infant’s gurgle being translated – the adult’s thoughts being followed up.

The phone gives you a choice: Tap here if you want recommendations. Or, tap here if you don’t want to hear from us again. It doesn’t matter which one you tap, or if you decide not to tap at all. The phone will bring you its thoughts on any subject you are thinking about. This is the marvel of modern technology.

You can trick it, of course. Think about travelling to Belgium, for instance, and it gives you all your choices: airlines, hotels, places to visit and so on. But if you think about Belgium when you are actually travelling to Vienna, you can – in your mind – call out ‘April Fool’, and the phone will indeed feel foolish.

Now they tell us that you don’t have to operate the camera or the mike even. Someone sitting halfway around the world and laughing like the villain in B-grade movies will do it for you. It means that we have to appear well groomed every day and wear formal clothes since we don’t know who might be watching.

Parents always told their children to draw the curtains before changing in the room. Now we have to fold the phone in a blanket and keep it in a lead-lined box before we change. The curtains can remain undrawn because everyone is busy staring at their phones.