5 Tech Myths You Probably Still Believe (But Shouldn’t!)

5 Tech Myths You Probably Still Believe (But Shouldn’t!)

Have you ever heard a tech tip from a friend of a friend who was ‘kind of’ techie, or read something on a forum 20 years ago that just ‘sounded’ right? Well, I hate to break it to you, but that advice is probably wrong. Dead wrong.

I once had a client who swore that keeping batteries in their fridge extended their lifespan.

In today's fast-paced digital world, technology develops at an unprecedented rate. With each passing year, new advancements and innovations reshape the way we live, work, and communicate. However, amidst this rapid progress, certain misconceptions and myths about technology continue to persist. These myths, often rooted in outdated information or misunderstandings, can lead to unnecessary worries, hinder our ability to make informed decisions, and even cause problems with our systems.

The following tech myths are the five most common things that come up in conversations I have had with clients. This advice is not only dead wrong, but following it could lead to unnecessary worries or even cause problems with your system.

 I will go over the myths, tell you why they are wrong and what to do instead.

Myth #1: You Don’t Need to Shut Down Your Computer Every Night.

Yes, you really do.

There is a myth that powering up your computer puts more stress on the components than just shutting down and powering up your system. This is wrong; in fact, the exact opposite is true. The unconditioned power that you draw from the wall fluctuates and spikes all the time. This can be massively detrimental to the extremely delicate components in your machine. In fact, over time, it can cause some very odd errors and even kill your system.

If you never power your system down, you increase the odds of these spikes and dips in the power supply damaging the system, especially the power supply, and a faulty power supply can be very time-consuming to diagnose and costly to have replaced unless you want to do the job yourself.

Operating systems like Windows and Linux are always adapting and improving as bugs and security vulnerabilities are discovered. These small ‘patches’ of software need to be applied to the system. In order to do that, it needs to restart so the patches can be installed and the system can start over with the new, improved software in place. They will invariably download without you even noticing, but you need to restart your system for these changes to take effect.

Lastly, the fans on your system are designed to suck in air and circulate it around the system case. As it sucks in air, it also sucks in tiny dust particles that can build up on your fan blades and, in a worst-case scenario, can impede the functionality of the fan or even break it completely. Some dust build up is unavoidable and the fans will be designed to deal with a certain amount of dust, however if your system is always running, its always sucking dust in.

Myth #2: Macs don’t get viruses.

Yes, yes, they do.

There is a misconception that dates way back that if you are using an Apple Mac, you don’t need to worry about viruses and malware, that they are somehow immune to the machinations of cyber-criminals, but they are not.  If they were, then surely Microsoft would copy whatever feature of the Mac OS offers this impunity.

The truth is that Macs are just as likely to suffer from problems caused by malicious software as PCs are. There just aren’t as many devices running Mac OS ‘in the wild, ’ so you simply don’t hear about them as much. The most recent data (taken from statcounter.com, March 2025) shows that only 15.74% of users are running Mac OS.

Although there is nothing implicitly safer about using a Mac, a smaller number of threats exist when compared to Windows, simply because of the difference between the way the Operating System’s work, a virus made to bring a Windows PC to its knees would more than likely do nothing to an Apple, and vice versa.

The problem for Apple users is that although the threat is, at the moment, lower, it is still there and on the rise.  As more people use Macs, more viruses and malicious programs will surface.

If you are a Mac user make sure to carry out safe web surfing practices (never go to a site that you don’t trust, don’t open email attachments from someone you don’t know, and so on) also if you are using a third party virus protection like Kaspersky, keep it updated and always make sure you’re using the most up to date version of the Mac OS.

Myth #3 Using Incognito Mode Makes You Anonymous

Not quite…

Let’s say you are on your home PC, and you want to buy a gift for your significant other, but you don’t want to leave a digital data trail showing that you visited Etsy and looked at bespoke handmade gift ideas.  A while ago, this would mean that you would have to wipe the history of the browser, which could look suspicious.

Modern browsers, however, have a feature whereby your local browsing will be kept private and, unless they have a tech background (and are looking for it), the next person to use the computer would have no clue what you were doing. A lot of people assume that this makes you invisible to everyone (your employer on a work computer, for example); this is not the case.  The information is still stored and, in some cases, reported back.

The website you have visited will also note your computer's IP address, and so will your Internet Service Provider.

If you want to remain completely anonymous online, you need to invest in a Virtual Private Network. Essentially, what this does is anonymize your computer's IP address, thus making it significantly more difficult to track.  VPNs can also make it seem like you are anywhere in the world, so, if you wanted to watch Netflix but didn’t like their UK selection you could log onto your VPN and tell it to make it look like you were in the US, this would then present you with the American version of Netflix.

VPNs are not standard software, you can find pretty decently priced packages online from companies such as Nord. This will give you peace of mind as an extra layer of internet security (protection from hackers) and make your surprise gift to your partner completely untraceable.

Myth # 4 More Bars Mean a Faster Signal

It’s all relative

Mobile phone signal strengths are calculated in decibels per milliwatt (dBm), this will be a number between about -150 and 0. The closer to zero, the stronger your signal is and the better your speed will be.  The problem is that each manufacturer, Apple, Samsung, Google or whoever, applies their own algorithm to work out how to translate complex business of signal strength into a visual representation.  What all this means is that you could have five bars on your Samsung mobile, whereas a person standing next to you with an iPhone only has three bars. This isn’t some kind of digital segregation. They both would be connected to the same tower and, in real terms, be receiving the same signal; it’s just represented slightly differently.

Alternately, you could have 2 bars and be texting up a storm, whereas your friend with 4 bars would be struggling to get and stay online because, in real terms, your two bars represent a stronger signal than your friend's four bars.

So, it's impossible to compare signal strength on handsets just by looking at the number of bars (or dots on some models) that the device has.  In the normal course of events, a single bar on your mobile device means that you have a poor quality or weak signal.  This could be down to an obstruction such as a building, mountain or even thick trees.

If you are in a heavily populated urban area, or even at the time of day or day of the year that you choose, it can impact your signal strength because of network traffic. All resources have limits, and mobile phone masts are no exception to this. If a lot of people are all on at the same time, then your network can struggle to keep up.

So, your bars are more of a guideline than a rule.

Myth #5: You Should Always Let Your Battery Drain to 0% Before Charging

25 years ago, yes. Now? No.

A good long while ago, when I was a fresh-faced techie, the advice du jour was that you should never recharge a battery unless you had completely run it down to 0%. There was some truth to this as the batteries of the time were mostly nickel–cadmium (ni-cad) that could have their life cycles negatively influenced by constant top-up charging. This is because of something called the memory effect; essentially, your device would ‘forget’ what a maximum charge is and reset to a new, lower threshold.

Modern devices, however, use lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries, which are environmentally questionable but, from a technology viewpoint, perfect because there is no memory effect. It is much more like simply emptying and refilling a jug; you use what there is, and when it’s gone, it's gone. All devices are equipped with firmware controls to prevent the battery from discharging excessively or overcharging. Therefore, when your phone indicates 1-2% battery, it is likely actually around 10%, and when it shows 100%, it is probably between 90-94%.

Li-ion batteries are really good at holding a charge, and since there is no memory effect, the only thing that stands against them is that they are mostly only specified to handle around 1000 charge cycles. This means that after about three years, your battery will start to lose charge much quicker and will eventually (say after 4 years) become quite unstable.

If you have a phone that has served you well for four years and ‘all of a sudden’ it's not holding a charge anymore, this is probably the root cause.

Conclusion

The tech world is constantly developing and changing; that’s what makes it such an exciting and dynamic field to work in. Some points on this list may have been true once; however, always making sure that you are keeping abreast of recent developments and changes means that you will always be getting the best advice now and will help expand the life of your tech.

Sometimes, it’s a splendid idea to double-check and question common tech wisdom, as there is a lot of worthless information out there mixed in with the good.

Please sound off in the comments if there are any other tech myths you would like me to set the record straight on.