Or go through tollbooths - medical tests - buy movie tickets online - use a preferred card at the grocery store, not to mention displaying our brand of toothpaste as we trudge through airport security.
And then there are cameras on street corners, monitors in every store, and search engines cataloging everything we seek online.
There's an amazing new book called The Numerati by Stephen Baker that explores this concept of "digital nosiness."
The book is described as "an urgent look at how a global math elite is predicting and altering our behavior - at work, at the mall, and in bed. Steve Baker's The Numerati shows how a powerful new endeavor, the mathematical modeling of humanity, stands to transform everyone's daily life."
The Numerati in the title refers to mathematicians and statisticians who are using this data to create a model of human nature as its never been done before. We live in a different world today.
The Numerati is available locally through The Book Stall at Chestnut Court, and other online retailers.
