Hello humans, I’m Eric Anctil, professor of media and technology, and host of The Secret Life of Tech.  Join me each week as I explore the hidden ways technology is changing how we humans work, live, love, and even hate.  

You’ll hear stories about people who came of age online, the secret lives they led, and how those experiences shaped their very identity and what it means to grow up in the modern world.  

You’ll hear about parents who secretly surveil their kids, and watch them  everywhere they go, and monitor everything they do online. 

You’ll hear from an ex-con who spent 22 years in prison, never touching technology until he was released and handed a modern smartphone and felt like he had exited a time machine into an entirely brave new world. 

On The Secret Life of Tech, you will hear the story of someone having their first romantic relationship over the chat function of a mobile game and how Disney porn (yes, there is such a thing) was the first porn in a young person’s life and how that shaped her understanding of what was available and possible because of her iPod touch and its connection to the internet. You will hear firsthand what it was like to be 17 and running a $70,000 a year business from a smartphone in a high school bathroom … and it was all legal. 

You will hear from everyday people who are falling in love with their AI boyfriends and girlfriends, and in some cases, even marrying them. And about robots and automation that is draining the creativity out of flying planes and driving trains, and even just writing a letter. 

Learn what it’s like to wield power as an anonymous content creator and maintain an OnlyFans that not even your friends know about. 

This is my invitation to you, to listen to the show and to learn the secret lives beneath – and because of – the technology we use every day, but it is also an invitation to be part of the show. Visit thesecretlifeoftech.com and leave a voice message or submit a written secret of your own – no matter how you share, I promise I will keep you anonymous if you ask.. And if you’re thinking to yourself, but what kinds of secret life could my technology be living? What secrets could I possibly have to share? You might also ask yourself, what secrets does only my smartphone know?

This is your chance to share something you could never imagine sharing in the “real world” and to hear others doing the same, as we all shed light and peek behind the curtain of the lives that live inside our tech. 

Secrets are more fun when they’re shared, and sharing the secret life of tech is critical to better understanding how our technology is changing what it means to be human today. 

You make this our show. Share your secrets, listen, subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts … because all around our tech there is a world of secrets just waiting to be told.