Don’t believe these tech myths

Technology can seem pretty mysterious at times, so it’s all too easy for misconceptions to spread.

That helps explain why I keep seeing technological myths propagate. Should you bury a wet phone in rice? Do you need a VPN to use public Wi-Fi networks? Is your phone secretly recording your conversations? The answer to these questions and more is no, but believing otherwise can be detrimental.

Here’s my attempt to dispel a half dozen popular tech myths, and what you should do instead of believing them.

This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up for free to get more tips every Tuesday.

Myth 1: Dry rice can save a wet phone

The idea that uncooked rice will draw the moisture from a waterlogged phone is so pervasive that even Apple has tried to dispel it. “Don’t put your iPhone in a bag of rice,” the company’s support documentation says. “Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone.”

What to do instead: Your phone may already be water resistant, rendering the rice trick obsolete. But if not, iFixit recommends shaking loose any excess water, turning the phone off, and leaving it out to dry for as long as possible. (Putting your phone in rice forces you to leave it alone, which may explain why the myth persists.)

Myth 2: You should regularly force-close all your phone apps

Since the advent of recent app menus in iOS and Android, I’ve seen too many people compulsively swiping up to force-close all their apps, mistakenly believing this will conserve battery life or help the phone run faster. In fact, force-quitting everything can make performance and battery life worse, because your apps will use more power each time they fully reload. Even Apple says to force-close an app only if it’s not responding, and the same logic applies to Android phones as well.

What to do instead: Use the Battery menu in your phone’s settings to identify apps that are draining your battery. You may need to adjust the background settings for that app or find an alternative.

Myth 3: Incognito mode prevents websites from tracking you

Misconceptions about Incognito mode are so widespread that Google had to settle a class-action lawsuit last year after Chrome users claimed that it provided a false sense of privacy. So here’s what your browser’s Incognito or Private Browsing mode actually does:

• Prevents sites from showing up in your browsing history so that others with access to your computer can’t see them.
• Lets you browse sites in a logged-out state, with none of your interactions carried over from previous visits.

These modes do not render you invisible online, as websites can still collect data and use identifiers such as your IP address to track you. And if you sign into a website while using Incognito mode, that activity will be associated with your account.

What to do instead: Use a web browser with strong built-in tracking protections, and possibly a VPN if you’re extremely concerned about privacy (though VPNs aren’t panaceas either). An ad-blocking extension can help, but only if you’ve set it to run in Incognito mode.

Myth 5: Public USB charging ports spread viruses

Thanks to repeated FBI warnings over the years, the idea that public USB charging ports can infect your devices with malware has become pervasive, yet the actual threat of “juice jacking” remains theoretical. To date, no one’s provided a single real-world example of charging ports spreading viruses. Besides, both Android and iOS require permission to transfer data when connecting your phone to another device—something you’d hopefully reject when plugging into a nefarious port.

What to do about it: Your own adapters and cables may be faster anyway—especially if you’ve followed my buying guide—but I wouldn’t fret about using hotel or coffee shop charging ports in a pinch.

Myth 5: You need a VPN for public Wi-Fi

This one’s just as pervasive as the juice-jacking myth, but at least it used to be true. These days, you’ll notice that pretty much every website has an “https” in its address, indicating that your traffic is encrypted. That makes the encryption from a VPN redundant. In the extremely rare case where a website transmits unencrypted data over Wi-Fi, your browser will use stern warnings to try to stop you from visiting it.

What to do instead: According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the best thing to do is make sure your device’s software and operating system are up-to-date, so you’re not at risk of security vulnerabilities that might transmit unencrypted traffic.

Myth 6: Your phone is listening to you

You’ve probably heard an anecdote like this: I recently met up with a friend, and they told me about something they bought that I’d never heard of before. Then a couple of days later, I started seeing Instagram ads for that exact product! My phone has to be recording me.

It’s not, but the reality is no less concerning: If an app on your phone has access to your location, and that data gets shared with a company like Facebook or Google, it’s fairly trivial for those companies to understand which devices are nearby and to target ads based on what those devices have been doing. That’s a lot easier than secretly recording audio, especially because your phone indicates when that’s happening.

What to do about it: If you find this behavior unsettling, take a few minutes to do the following:

These steps won’t solve every potential privacy issue, but they’ll alleviate the feeling that your phone is always listening.

This story first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up for free to get more tips every Tuesday.