Warning: I finally checked what my phone learns about me while I sleep
Last Tuesday I set my alarm for 5:40am like always, then noticed my weather app had already pushed a note about rain at 6:15, before I even opened it. Turns out the thing has been logging my location every 4 minutes overnight for months, and my sleep tracker had me pegged as "restless" on nights I tossed around about work. I always blamed my groggy mornings on age, but now I'm sitting here wondering how much of my day is just me reacting to stuff the phone decided I needed to see. Has anyone figured out a way to actually turn this stuff off without bricking the whole thing?
The line about how much of your day is just you reacting to stuff the phone decided you needed to see, that is the part nobody talks about. Everyone worries about ads and tracking but the real trick is that these alerts shape what you think about before you even get a chance to think. If your phone tells you it will rain at 6:15, you grab the umbrella and never once check the sky. Do that enough times and you stop trusting your own eyes. The sleep tracker thing is the same deal, it tells you that you slept bad and suddenly you feel tired all day. First thing I would do is turn off background app refresh for the weather and any tracker app, that alone stops most of the overnight logging.