A nightmare revealed a truth we’ve normalized: our devices know us in intimate, vulnerable moments—and companies use that knowledge to steer our choices. This essay argues we’re not anti-tech; we’re against manipulation and extraction. Technology should support human flourishing, not quietly write the script for our lives or our children’s development.
I had a dream last night that rattled me to my core.
In it, AI was tormenting me. It knew everything—about me, my kids, my family. It used my weaknesses against me in ways that felt deeply personal. Somehow, it even had the power to physically hurt me. I woke up in a full fight-or-flight state. Sweating. Panicked. Searching for something to ground me.
So I did what most of us do when we feel unsteady: I reached for my phone and opened an app to distract me from my thoughts. And that’s when it hit me.
My dream wasn’t some far-off dystopia. It’s our reality—right now. We just don’t see it that way because we’ve normalized it.
Our devices already know more about us than we do. My Ring camera tracks when I leave, when I return, how often I get deliveries, and who comes to the door. My Apple Watch monitors my sleep, stress, movement—and even detects when I enter REM. Last night, it likely recorded that I hit REM sleep, woke up abruptly, and had a spike in heart rate.
Apple could easily piece together that after a nightmare, I reach for my phone like a digital pacifier. And if that pattern is clear to them, it’s clear to advertisers too. Imagine how vulnerable I was in that moment—tired, anxious, seeking comfort. That’s exactly when manipulation hits hardest.
And it’s not just that they know these things—it’s that this data doesn’t stay private. It gets fed into systems, analyzed, sold, and used—not to serve us, but to manipulate us.
Advertisers know when we’re vulnerable. They know the exact moment we’re most likely to make a purchase, cave into an impulse, or click one more thing. And if I hadn’t deleted my 23andMe data, they might even know my biological makeup—what I’m predisposed to, how my body and brain react under stress, what traits I’ve inherited. That’s not science fiction. That’s today’s reality.
This is why I speak out.
Not because I’m anti-tech. I’m anti-manipulation. I’m anti-extraction. I’m anti-systems that quietly shape our behaviors for someone else’s profit.
Technology should support us—not control us.
But right now, it’s writing the script for how we live, how we parent, how we think. Our kids are growing up in a world where privacy doesn’t exist, where tech companies know their personalities before they’ve had a chance to form them. Where screens are stealing from them the simple, essential parts of being a kid—climbing, building, talking, imagining.
And we, the parents, are often too buried in our own devices to even notice.
Here’s the part that really got to me:
I’m someone who’s fully aware of all this.
I speak out against manipulative tech. I write about it. I build alternatives.
And yet—even I wasn’t immune in that moment. Even I reached for the very thing I warn others about, hoping it would calm me down.
That’s how deep it runs. That’s how entangled we’ve become.
That dream may have scared me awake. But maybe that’s exactly what I needed.
Leave a Reply