Think about your phone for a moment, and what you tell it.
It knows what time you wake-up in the morning and how long you laid in bed checking your Instagram to see what #drama happened last night. It knows the exact distance you walk from your bed to your kitchen in the morning to get breakfast and at what time you eat it every day. Your phone knows what you sing along to in the shower and knows that you really, really do not sound like Doja Cat.
How many selfies did you take in the morning when getting ready? That would be nine, but you picked number seven. The phone knows. How you lied to your friends about saying it only took you fifteen minutes to get ready in your chat group? The phone knows that as well.
But that’s the small stuff.
It knows the university you hope to get into but would never tell your social circle about because you’re afraid you don’t have the grades. It knows that you have not one, not two, but seven break-up playlists — all about the same person who you say you were never that into in the first place. It knows you’re worried your parents fight so often that you almost wish they would get a divorce, even though the thought of it terrifies you. It knows you said you were obsessed with BLACKPINK last year in the hopes of fitting in, but that in reality you’ve played exactly eight minutes and twenty-two seconds of their music.
Your phone knows all of these things because you spend most of your day telling it about yourself. Not consciously, but across chats and social media and shopping apps and fitness trackers. The above might apply specifically to a 17-year-old — though hands-up for those in their 30s stan-ing BLACKPINK to keep up with The Youths — but these digital confessionals apply to all of us. Nobody knows who we are for real except our virtual BFF.
