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# My phone is clearly listening to me*
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/my-phone-is-clearly-listening-to-me/
- Published: 2026-09-27T18:46:33.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-27T18:46:33.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler

I've had two incidents in the past weekend that proved to me that my iPhone was listening. We were visiting a friend out of state, and we were talking about all sorts of things we don't generally discuss, but based on what I'm seeing on my phone, it's pretty clear that my phone is listening and serving up content based on what we say.

The first incident was on Friday, where our friend revealed that they never create accounts online. They have a couple accounts that they absolutely must have, but in general they won't use something unless they can do it without creating one. Not an hour later, I have this email from Railway that talks about how I can now create a new VM without creating an account.

Crazy right!?

And not only did it come to my email, but they wrote up a [public blog post](https://railway.com/changelog/2026-09-25-free-vms-without-an-account?ref=birchtree.me) about it, emailed all their customers, and implemented it just because we were talking about it.

The second event was just a day later and it was just as shocking. We wanted to go to breakfast and there was this place called [Honey Bees](https://honeybeesbg.com/?ref=birchtree.me), which they liked, but warned us that if the owner was there, they were going to make bee puns. It was a 20-minute drive or so, and we spent the whole drive making stupid bee puns and talking about bees in general.

After we got home from breakfast, it was time for us to drive back home. So we packed up, got in the car, and I was excited to see a [new episode](https://www.wehaveconcerns.com/bee-smart/?ref=birchtree.me) of [We Have Concerns](https://www.wehaveconcerns.com/?ref=birchtree.me) had dropped into my podcast queue.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/31/25312b2a-2d5b-4d01-ba92-e6755efc202c/content/images/2026/09/bees.jpg)

Okay, this is just getting spooky. We never talk about bees. And yet, as soon as we did, suddenly there's a bee-focused podcast in my player. If you think this is a coincidence, then I don't know what to tell you: you're a sheep.

---

Of course, I don't think I fooled anyone with this post. No one actually thinks that my phone was listening to me, and therefore a marketing newsletter went out or a podcast episode that was recorded months ago was released just because me and my friends were talking about these things.

However, these are exactly the sort of coincidences that people bring up all the time when talking about proof that everyone is listening to you through your phone. Genuinely, if these had been in any form of advertisement or promoted content in a social feed, there are millions of people who would immediately clock it as undeniable proof that their phone is listening and you'd be a rube if you denied their experience. How could you look at this clear cause and effect and come to any other conclusion?

I'm writing this post not to present any definitive evidence that your phone is or is not listening to you – I'm not going to convince anyone today. I'm writing it simply to show that coincidences happen, correlation does not equal causation, and science is not anecdotal. If you're going to convince people that your phone is really listening to you and sharing every word you say with advertisers across the world, you need to do better than, "oh, there was this coincidence."