In case you also think that your phone is listening to you

I think almost everyone has experienced it: you talk to someone about something that totally doesn't suit you and that you would never Google, and sure enough... You open your phone, and BAM: an advertisement for exactly that product. Whether it's a long-held dream to go to North Korea, a plea about the best cordless vacuum cleaner (still the best invention of the century), or suddenly having a passionate conversation about the best tights, that advertisement is suddenly there. Well, sorry, it can't be anything other than that they are just listening in on your phone?

That's a bit different. Because the chance that Google or Mark Zuckerberg himself is listening in on your conversations is quite small. So what is it then, because you really do see those advertisements while you just literally talked about it? Well, that's a typical case of confirmation bias, or: confirmation prejudice.

Confirmation bias is actually very simple: you talked about something or read about something and suddenly you see it everywhere. In the case of advertisements, people quickly draw the conclusion that their phone has a secret listening function, but in reality, those advertisements were already there, but you only notice them now because you just talked about it.

Since I've read a bit about confirmation bias, I find it striking how often you encounter it. For example, a week ago I told a friend that I was curious about how things were going in India with the whole corona situation, because I hadn't heard much about it, and boom, less than a day later I saw all kinds of news articles about it. It could be the timing, but this is definitely confirmation bias.

The website verywellmind also gives a very good example of confirmation bias in everyday life. Suppose you strongly believe that left-handed people are much more creative than right-handed people, then every time you meet a left-handed person who happens to be creative, you will think: see? Your assumption, your idea about it, is correct. And because of that confirmation bias, your brain unconsciously does not register every left-handed person who is NOT creative that you have met.

So it works the same way with that advertisement-that-can't-be-a-coincidence: the advertisements you haven't just had a conversation about, you don't register, but the one you just had a whole conversation about, that one you definitely notice.

So unfortunately, I have no proof for you that your phone is really listening in on you, but this might be a somewhat more comforting thought, right? If you do want to immerse yourself in the strangest conspiracy theories, here are six that you absolutely want to know.