If you grew up around some of the earlier models of televisions and computers, you may have received at least one sternly-worded warning to never place a magnet near them. These warnings still persist into the modern day, with the notion of placing a magnet near any electronic device generally considered a bad idea because it could damage the electronics. In actuality, while magnets can be mildly hazardous for some devices, the lion’s share of concern is a myth rooted in outdated technology.
The primary worry regarding magnets and electronics is that placing a magnet near a device could shift its components around or erase vital data. This was certainly true at a time when electronics like TVs and hard drives used magnetized components, but in today’s world, such components are rarely used, if ever. The technology used in modern devices today is much more resistant to the mild magnetic fields you’d find on a typical consumer-grade magnet, so it’s not nearly as much of a concern. That’s not to say there’s no concern whatsoever, as an extremely powerful magnet could still damage modern electronics, but the odds of the average person owning or even encountering such a magnet are low.
Magnets used to be a bigger concern for CRT TVs and hard drives
In the olden days of cathode ray tube (CRT) television sets and traditional disc-based hard drives, magnets were certainly more of a valid concern. That’s because these types of electronics made use of magnetized components to store data and display pictures. A CRT TV, for example, uses a cathode ray to beam electrons onto a phospor-covered glass surface. The singular beam is moved rapidly via a process known as electromagnetic deflection, which uses internal magnets. The phosphor then glows to create a solid picture. Similarly, a hard drive also uses magnets to write and overwrite data on the metal platter hard disc drive (HDD).
Placing a magnet near either of these devices could, in theory, damage them, distorting the screen or corrupting the data, as placing one magnet near another magnet can mess with its magnetic field. Before you throw away all of your hard drives, though, it’s worth noting that you would need a particularly powerful magnet applied directly to the most vulnerable point to do damage. In general, you would need to place a very strong magnet magnet right on top of a cathode ray tube or a hard drive’s platter to permanently damage them. Just leaving a fridge magnet beside a modern TV or computer won’t have a significant affect on either device because such a low-grade magnetic field isn’t strong enough to alter an established electromagnetic current.
Modern tech is more resistant to magnets, though not completely
Modern TVs and PCs, alongside similar electronic devices like phones, make far less use of those heavily magnetized components than they used to, if they even still use them at all. Flat screen TVs, for example, now use liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and LEDs, with no magnets or cathode rays involved. While hard disc drives still exist, today’s newest computers have more reliable solid-state drives (SSDs) that don’t use magnetic platters to write data. Without these magnetic components, there’s even less risk of an errant fridge magnet damaging your electronics when the odds were already low.
For the sake of being thorough, however, we should clarify that it is possible for certain kinds of magnets to still be hazardous to modern electronic devices. Specifically, we’re talking about scientific-grade neodymium magnets with a pulling force of at least 450 pounds. This kind of magnet could absolutely damage any kind of electronic device – even the flash chips in a solid-state drive wouldn’t be immune to that kind of powerful magnetic scrambling. Don’t panic, though, because the odds of a neodymium magnet ever coming near your electronics are extremely low. You’ll typically only find these kinds of magnets in professional-grade equipment, like MRI machines, magnetic cranes, or the massive superconductive magnets in a fusion reactor. Unless you happen to walk into a hospital’s MRI screening room, it’s probably not something you need to worry about.
