Is your phone spying on you? 45% of Brits say Facebook monitors their calls
“I guess if the monitoring results in me seeing more relevant adverts, that’s not necessarily a bad thing”
Jamie, 25
Interestingly, 25-34-year-olds, who are often assumed to be one of the most tech-savvy generations, are the most untrusting of their phones, with 63% of them believing they’re being listened to.
As people get older, they generally grow less suspicious of technology, with the 35-44 olds (48%) and 45-54 (22%) age categories both more trusting of their devices.
The survey also found a few specific examples of suspicious coincidences around social media advertising.
Mary, aged 29, said: “My whole office [me included] is talking about Love Island at the moment. I purposely avoid googling Love Island or following any of the related Twitter accounts to avoid spoilers, however I keep getting targeted by Love Island related adds such as the brands sponsoring the show, the clothes brands worn by the girls and even holidays to Mallorca!”
Emily, 25, recalled: “My friend came round to share the news that she was pregnant, we Facetimed my other friends so that she could let them know also, then weirdly in the days following I kept seeing pregnancy test adverts on Facebook and Instagram!”
Ellis, 29, told the survey: “I was recently speaking to my friend on hands-free while driving home from work about a hen party I was about to start planning, discussing the best city to have it in. After agreeing that Liverpool would be the best location, as soon as I got in the house and starting mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, I was getting sponsored adverts for accommodation in Liverpool. We had only just agreed on the location of the hen, so I hadn’t done any prior searches that could explain why I was being targeted with these ads!”
Lee Weymouth, Commercial Director at Ebuyer said: “The survey shows that people are generally distrusting of social media and technology, despite so many of us continuing to use it every day. Technology is growing increasingly clever and there are certainly times where it seems as if it is monitoring our every move!”
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