10 Technology Myths That People Still Believe (and Why They Are Not True)

Most people think of myths as traditional or ancient stories, passed from person to person around a roaring campfire. More recently, urban legends have become a form of modern folklore warning of the dangers of everything from strangers, drinking alcohol, and even to visiting foreign places.

Still more recently myths have emerged surrounding the technology most of use in our daily lives. No matter how often these are debunked we still hear them regularly from people who really should know better!

This blog is going to cover some of the more common tech myths and explain why they simply are not true.

1. Leaving you phone plugged in overnight damages the lithium-ion battery

A smart phone is called a smart phone for a reason and they are smart enough not to let an overload happen. Thanks to extra protection chips in phones, tablets and even laptops, once the lithium-ion battery reaches 100% of its capacity, charging stops.

If you leave a smartphone plugged in overnight, it’s going to use a bit of energy constantly trickling new juice into the battery when it drops to 99%.

2. Jailbreaking your phone is illegal

Thinking about jailbreaking your phone? Perhaps you want more control or to be able to install apps from places other than those approved by the manufacturer. Are you wondering if its legal to do?

Jailbreaking your own phone is legal in most parts of the world. If, however you decide to jailbreak someone else’s phone that isn’t a minor, that is illegal as essentially you are taking something that doesn’t belong to you.

I would however recommend checking your local laws before you do it.

3. More bars on your mobile phone means better service

The bars showing on your phone indicate signal strength to the nearest phone mast - not the quality of available service.

If lots of people are using the same cell tower then your service may be intermittent, slow or even unavailable. This happens a lot in places like sporting events, concerts or shopping centres where there is a large concentration of people.

4. The more megapixels the better the camera

Megapixels have absolutely nothing to do with digital photo quality, only photo size. The camera’s sensor type, processor and optics determines the quality. The only impact the number of megapixels makes is in the quality of a zoomed-in image snapped by a smartphone.

5. You should shut down your PC each night

Of course, this will save power and will prevent the cooling fans sucking in more dust however, it’s not absolutely necessary.

Constantly turning your machine off and on will subject the power supply and hard drive to more stress. A compromise to save power would be to leave your PC in sleep mode.

6. Apple computers are immune to viruses

The majority of viruses are written to target computers running Microsoft Widowns but Apple computers are technically just as vulnerable. There are several reasons why Apple products are a less popular target. The main one being simply the numbers - the install base is far smaller than Windows machines and therefor a less lucrative target for scammers.

7. Private/Incognito browsing protects your privacy

This feature isn’t as private as the name suggests. The setting tells your browser not to save your browsing history or capture what you have typed into forms. It absolutely doesn’t, however, keep you anonymous. Your ISP and the websites you visit can still keep track of your online activity. There precise topic has landed Google in hot water recently.

8. A £50 digital cable is better than a £5 digital cable

Yes, everyone wants the best digital output however there is absolutely no need to spend loads on these cables. Testing has also proved there is no difference in the signal quality between premium digital cables and cheap versions.

9. A 64-bit operating system is faster than a 32 bit one

If you upgrade your PC to a 64-bit operating system you won’t see any performance boosts from the OS alone. However, having a 64-bit OS does enable certain advances that isn’t possible with 32-bit.

The main advantage is it allows the OS to recognise more than 4GB RAM, which will intern speed up your system dramatically.

10. Emptying the Recycle Bin or Trash permanently deletes files

Deleted a load of files? Want to get rid of them for good? Of course, you empty the Recycle bin or trash can, but did you know that doesn’t actually delete the data? Emptying these containers only deletes the links to the files and allows your computer to deallocate the space it takes up on the hard drive. Bits of the data remain forever, and any snooping hacker could put them back together to rebuild the file.

In order to fully remove the data, you have to instruct the PC to delete via command-line or use a third party program

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