I remember when I was growing up (decades ago), my dad instilled in me to never put a magnet up to a computer or TV because they would cause irreparable damage to the screen. While I’m sure that SOMEWHERE out in the world there’s a magnet strong enough to cause damage if given enough time or whatever, but in terms of what I can buy from a store, would it be safe to keep my cell phone and a magnet (say, one of those ‘clicking’ fidget toys with half a dozen or so small magnets) in the same pocket, or am I just asking for trouble?

Edit: Thank you everyone for all your answers! I now know far more than I expected to from this silly question 😁

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    5·
    12 hours ago

    Magnets can damage CRT televisions and mechanical hard drives (not solidstate ones I don’t think). I’m not necessarily going to test it by rubbing magnets all over, but for the most part those two things have fallen out of use. Tech is a lot less… Moving now. I guess is a good way of putting it. With hard drives specifically it would cause the arm inside to move and scratch the disk.

    • osbo9991@lemmy.world
      3·
      7 hours ago

      With hard drives specifically it would cause the arm inside to move and scratch the disk.

      Really? I thought magnets placed near hard drives would just magnitize the platters in such a way that the data would be destroyed. In that case it would still work if reformatted I think.