[7DY3M72u2jv8gtS]

But our phones are listening. We took a long drive today, and my wife and I discussed homosexuality during a significant portion of that drive. Once we got home, my wife started seeing ads for gay bars and events in Sarasota. Neither of us is homosexual, for what that’s worth.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Every so often my wife would suddenly see ads on Facebook about things we’ve just discussed in meatspace. You might call this anecdata, but to me it’s a pattern because it keeps happening.

[eurasiantiger]

Agreed. Similar speech-to-ad conversions have been happening for years now, and they are definitely not coincidences or confirmation bias.

[auslegung]

Sar…sarcasm?

[XCSme]

I usually don't believe in this stuff and think it's coincidence, but it does happen very often.

One thing that happened in my case, I think I was discussing with someone at a table-tennis club about someone playing squash and he showed me a livestream of that guy playing squash. When I got home I started seeing ads for places to play squash even though I never searched for it on my phone, but this is what I think happened: my phone and his were on the same network, so someone the ad-network associated my device with the "squash" keyword because another device on the same network searched for it.

I think this is usually what happens when you "discuss" with someone, that person or someone else in your proximity might search online for that thing and your device will be indirectly associated with that search.

[AntwaneB]

And did you count the times it did NOT happen? How many times have you talked about a subject, and then no ad related to that subject appeared?

You're noticing the exception to the rule, not the rule.