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 😁
Keep strong magnets away from HDDs and tapes, which includes your credit cards (although chip and pin aren’t susceptible). The rest can deal with it, but those storage technologies can be influenced by strong magnetic fields.
CC strips are actually pretty magnet resistant.
I remember in the early to mid 2000s if we were traveling, when we’d put our hotel key cards in the same pocket of our cell phone, the key card would get rendered inert somehow. Dunno if that still happens nowadays.
Yeah, probably the magnetic stripe on the key card (which is essentially a piece of tape) got distorted that way.