Recently, I noticed a new (at least to me) feature in Gmail regarding the inbox.
Most of the time, I rush through checking my email, so it’s interesting that I slowed down enough to notice this feature. When you hover over the inbox without clicking, a little arrow appears on the side. Arrows usually mean “I’m hiding something”, so I tried clicking on it to see what would happen.
What I found was a whole bunch of ways to organize your inbox. My favorite one puts all unread messages on the top. I have yet to try this, as I found it overwhelming to look at all of my unread (and old) messages. One day I’ll deal with them, and remember this inbox setting.
Now, this is an observe because of how this little arrow made me behave following its discovery. I proceeded to spend a good amount of time hovering over everything and clicking everything I could see in Gmail, just to find out if anything happened. I didn’t realize it had happened until I finished my quest. Imagine what they could do with the knowledge of how to control me like that…imagine how many other sets of data they’re collecting on us, or could collect on us in a similar manner.