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 ๐Ÿ˜

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[โ€“] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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