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 😁

  • @RalphusJ@lemmy.world
    38•21 hours ago

    A magnet on a old CRT TV would distort the colors and image in cool ways along the magnetic field. Nothing permanent unless you left it there for a long ass time. Ahh memories…

    • JackbyDevEnglish
      2•13 hours ago

      I got permanent damage on a CRT by playing with some magnets neat it. Never left them around it overnight or anything. They were the magnets from the magnetic beyblade arena lol. The sides of the screen got sort of more red. If bright colors, especially white, were on those areas for a long time they’d get progressively more discolored. It would fade back to its mostly normal dull red shade after some time without the bright white. So it wasn’t the worst damage ever, but it was definitely permanent damage and definitely noticeable.

    • Default UsernameEnglish
      10•19 hours ago

      A magnet can absolutely fuck up a color CRT beyond repair by causing an extreme misalignment of the shadow mask or aperture grille that even a degaussing wand can’t fix. It’d need to be a pretty powerful magnetic field, though. You’d basically have to try to mess it up.

      Black and white CRTs are fine, though.

    • LurkingLudditeEnglish
      7•20 hours ago

      A strong one would fuck it up ‘permanently’, as in it took active measures to restore a good picture (degaussing).

      • @LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        7•18 hours ago

        Had an audiophile buddy who had two giant speakers next to his CRT TV.

        There were two permanent half circles on either side of the TV. It was bad enough that degaussing didn’t help.

        He didn’t care one bit about video performance, just wanted his audio to be the best he could.