Someone's Watching

Hi Readers,

I'm anticipating this to be a short post, but I always say that then end up just banging on as more waffle comes to mind!

This post was prompted by a comment about one of my posts from an overseas Reader, and it got me thinking about who actually reads this stuff. And as I started to think about this, I then started to think about how much we are being "spied" upon without really knowing it. I only use that term "spied" light heartedly, as I'm sure we all know that whatever we do we can just about be assured that in some way our actions can be tracked to some extent.

Let me start with how wide this Reader base has been lately. I know that some choose to read these posts each time they get published, and thank you for taking the time to do this. Others stumble across it and stay with me, and I'm sure many others come across it and think "What the hell did I just encounter?!!" and never return!!

I am able to go and view where my readers are by country, and that's as far as it goes. Viewing by city is not given, so your anonymity is protected. Some choose to add comments to my posts, and that is always appreciated, and once again, this can be done anonymously.

So what I have added here are the details of views for the past 30 days, and I always get dumbfounded as to how people stumble across my blog. Across the years there have been regular numbers from certain countries, then other countries show up for a while and gradually fade away, only to be replaced by others.

I always wonder how and why Readers find it. God help these poor souls!!!

This is the distribution for the past 30 days, with 512 being the greatest readership hits from a single country, that being Singapore. 

Poor old Singapore hardly shows up on the map!

While I'm still perplexed as to why people in Singapore are finding it hard to occupy themselves, the influx in readers lately in Hong Kong and Mexico puzzles me. As for Lithuania, what is going on there??

Then I see someone in Israel and another in Romania has had a peek. As for the other 94 locations, they could be from anywhere, as the blog site doesn't list every location as that would just mean another 94 lines of print.

When I look at the details for longer time periods, for example 6 months, 1 year, or all time it becomes just as interesting and intriguing.

I'd love to hear how any of the readers from some of these foreign lands (to me) stumbled across my blog, and why you are staying with me at the moment. Or even just say what city you might be from in the comments section. Trust me, it is anonymous, and I won't come looking for you on my next overseas trip!!!

So now that I know that the drivel I produce is being regularly digested in many countries around the world, it means that I'm willingly putting a lot about myself out to the world. We all know that the internet can be rife with bad guys who want to take your blood and your money, so I take care to be cautious about how much I'm prepared to share. Many of you might think that perhaps I might share too much, or not enough, but it all rests with me.

I'm sure you've all had this experience, where you have been talking about a topic with someone, and then for some strange coincidence you start seeing ads or content about it on your social media pages. Or when you do a quick search on a new car for example, and then you are flooded with content about that car. I know that this has been happening a lot for me lately with motorbikes, as I sold mine last week, and I'm still being flooded with car and caravan ads as my van is for sale, and perhaps my car might go the same way. Just not sure about the car yet.

Not anymore!!!

Goodbye!!!!

The bike was a reluctant sale, but a necessary one that surprised many as they knew how much I loved it. But after a number of hand surgeries over the past two years, and more to come, I found that I wasn't able to ride it safely anymore, and I didn't want to risk the safety of others by continuing to ride it. And now with this bung leg, I wasn't overly confident in my strength to control a bike this big. So yes, I was sad to see it go, but I knew it was the right thing to do and I'm fine with it. And to lose only $500 in value after 8 years was a bit of a bonus!!!

Now that I'm not researching motorbikes I find that my social media feed is not clogging up with bike ads. 

So how does this happen? We chat about things and "nek minute..."

By now, those of you who are really tech savvy will be screaming out the reason why this happens, and I sort of have a very basic understanding of it, but doesn't it show us how so much of what we do can be picked up in different ways.

Or when you click on a link out of interest, and for the next forever how long, you are bombarded with more links about it.

I saw an ad for sausages on tv last night, and the ad must have worked as I have been craving them all day. To the point where I went and bought some this morning, and not to spoil the moment have been wondering how to cook them. I'm tempted to search online but I know I'll get sausage recipes for the next few days!!

For the record, I'm going to have curried sausages with oh so creamy mashed potato!!!

It now seems that we have to be very discreet when talking about things within earshot of our devices, or is that just coincidence and urban myth? I'm not tech savvy enough myself to know either way, so I'll just be careful talking to myself at home!!

When I think back to my late teenage years, and then the years at Teacher's College, I can only be thankful that we didn't have the mobile technology at our disposal then that we do now. When my friends of a similar age talk about this we all agree that we probably wouldn't have got teaching jobs and would have had a lot of explaining to do about certain exploits!!

Today we just have to be ultra careful about everything we do as we just can't be sure that it won't be recorded. CCTV is everywhere, many doorbells capture everything that happens in the street, and practically everyone has a phone and can whip it out in a split second and film or take photos in a second.

I'm not pointing the finger at everyone else here, as I am in exactly the same boat.

 How many times have you been surprised when someone has shown you a photo or short video that they have taken of you that you were completely unaware of? 

Sometimes this can be very funny and not done to cause embarrassment or harm, but too often lately we are hearing of cases where exactly the opposite is occurring.

At the moment I am reading a book where famous Australians share their examples of being bullied when they were at school. This was before the dawn of mobile phones, so I can only imagine how much harder it is for those being tormented this way today.

One only has to read the papers to see how widespread this is with so many of our teens and how some have resorted to the most extreme and unfortunate ways to escape it.

The fact that just about everything that gets posted online is there forever goes to show that we are being watched forever.

Walk down the street and have a casual look as to where there is CCTV. I'm not against it, in fact I feel safer because of it, but it just reinforces that we are being watched constantly. And where we can't see it, I just presume it is still there somewhere.

You might recall a recent post where I mentioned how the Apple Map App in my car predicts where I might be needing to go based on the day and time of day. Geez, half the time I don't even know where I'm going in my car at the moment as I just need to escape the house for a short time as I am going nuts with cabin fever being stuck here all day with my leg on the stool!! Hopefully next week I'll get the okay to start using it again. 

                            Thank goodness for that muffin!!!!

Well Readers, what started out as just a brief observation about who actually reads my stuff has turned out to be a trip down the never ending rabbit hole of "Big Brother Is Watching You"!! I didn't mean that to happen, but the more I wrote the more I realised how detectable we really are. If I chose to drive into town in the next hour, or to QLD tomorrow, I know that my movements will be able to be tracked by way of my phone and the GPS in my car, or even the Apple Tags I use.

Back in my previous life 8 months ago as a teacher we would constantly be telling the kids about the need for cyber safety, and even now I wonder if we are hitting the mark as we still see instances of kids doing abhorrent things online to each other, and that these things might come back to bite them in the bum later in life. My last post mentioned that schools were being increasingly being asked to be responsible for the teaching of so many things troubling society, and cyber safety is one of these that stands out. But it must be done at home the most, as that's when it happens most.

Time to get off the ladder to my soap box Readers, or else I'll start losing Readers faster than I can attract them!!

For nearly 6 weeks now I have been stuck to the armchair in my lounge room, but I think that I can be assured that much of what I have been watching on tv, listening to online and searching for online could be readily discovered if such a need should arise.

Someone's Watching!!!!!

Until my next post,

Cheers 😁