Genisys

This type of thing happens all too often. You're talking about something random, let's say your favorite pieces from a bag of Chex Mix. You don't type anything into a search engine about it. You're not using your desktop computer or mobile phone at the time. You haven't purchased any from the store or Amazon or looked up any Chex Mix recipes recently. You just briefly talk about it for a minute and then the conversation changes.

The next day, you open up Facebook, and the following ad appears:

That is an actual screenshot I took when this happened to me. The strangest thing about this is that I don't have the Facebook app on my phone. I access it through my web browser, which means Facebook can't be constantly listening in to me. My wife and daughter do have the Facebook app. So if it was listening on one of their phones, it made the connection to show the ad to me.

Genisys in the title above is a reference to Terminator Genisys, which I just watched so is fresh on my mind. It is interesting how the time travelers are blown away by everyone's obsession with their mobile devices. And [spoiler alert] the artificial intelligence network which was a missile defense system in the initial movies ended up being a social media cloud system in this movie reboot. It was honestly more of a MacGuffin than an important plot point, other maybe when the security guard was looking at his phone instead of the surveillance cameras. Of course 2 or 3 decades ago people were concerned with Soviet missiles, while now social media is the big thing.

Is it a big leap from your phone showing you ads for Chex Mix to robots controlled by social media and destroying mankind? Maybe. But next time you're out in public, look around at who's being controlled by their phones.