How do I know what data companies are collecting about me online?

Start where the water flows naturally: your own accounts. Log into Google's Activity Controls, Facebook's Off-Facebook Activity, and Apple's privacy dashboard. These aren't perfect mirrors, but they're honest ones. Then request your full data from major platforms using their Subject Access Request tools—it's your legal right in most places now. You'll get a folder of everything: searches, clicks, even the things you typed but didn't send. The shock isn't usually the quantity. It's the granularity. They know your hesitations. Once you see it, something shifts. You realize data collection isn't theoretical—it's the digital equivalent of someone following your footsteps through a city and writing down every window you paused at. The real work isn't knowing what's collected. It's deciding which collections you accept and which you resist. That clarity—that wu wei of digital life—comes from looking directly at what's actually happening, not what you assume is happening.