To be honest, I tried to find something that’s free in our lives. I could find a few things, but not too many. Sunshine, fresh air and a good laugh, those are for free. But other than this, you need to pay. You might receive gifts at different events, but usually they don’t last long. What has value, you need to pay for that. You don’t just pay money for goods, you can pay with your time, attention, and energy. For knowledge you pay with time. For friendship you pay with attention. For looking good you pay with energy. Using your phone, you pay with your data.
First you buy a new phone, and you pay for the usage of the network but not for the different applications you use. It seems like they are free. You don’t pay for Facebook, Instagram, or Google Maps. You can pay with your bank app, but you don’t pay for the app itself. But that’s just not entirely true. You can’t see it, and you may not know about it. But you pay for these apps with your own personal data. Because the different sensors in your phone are collecting data from your everyday life. Sensors like your camera, your microphone, the GPS, the gyroscope, the magnetometer and so on. They send this information to different servers where these data are analyzed. With AI it’s quick and easy. You don’t know about it, but these apps are talking to each other on your phone, sharing information with each other about you and your day’s activity, about your interest, your calls and searches. After analyzing it, they know what to show you next time you open your social media accounts. It happens to us daily.
But you have a CHOICE. You can have a phone which is not a spy in your pocket.
