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 😁
It’s fine.
The reason it was an issue with old TVs is because they worked by firing electrons at the screen. Magnets would misalign the internal components resulting in an area of the screen with permanently damaged coloring roughly in the shape of the magnetic field.
The reason it was an issue with old hard drives is because a magnet would read and write the ones and zeroes off the drive platters kind of like a vinyl record player, and any magnetic interference could potentially corrupt the data on the drive.
Modern solid state storage devices are (mostly) unaffected by this problem because they read and write data using electricity instead of magnets.
Nah, it’s not fine. A changing magnetic field still induces current in any conductor. So, swipe a strong enough magnet across your phone in the wrong place and you’ll run a strong risk of doing something similar to ESD (electrostatic discharge) damage.