I have always wondered about where any myth comes from. We have, all sorts of myths for all sorts of things and I am always curious as to the identity of the particular individual that must have started the myth in the first place.

In spite of the internet, where you can literally look up any information to check its validity, the myths about the various stuff only seem to have been propagated more.

For the purposes of this post, let’s talk about smartphones and the many, many myths surrounding them. As you know, there are several components that come together to make a smartphone. There are hardware components and there are software components and people do no always fully understand how each works.

This leads to misconceptions and misunderstandings of the technology at hand (literally), and coupled with the fact that there are so many manufacturers and millions of models, it is easy to see how a particular trait of a handful of models become synonymous with the smartphone itself. Let’s take a look at some of these myths.

1. Better Specs Equals Better Smartphone

This particular myth has personally tormented me so much my entire life. I have always been a tech enthusiast and seeing my friends purchase smartphones over and over again based on paper specifications, drove me mad.

Yes, maybe once things were so simple where you could simply compare the two smartphones on paper and decide to go for the better one, but now, things have diversified so much with so many companies producing so many components that go in a smartphone.

These days, you have to know about the real world performance of a smartphone to see if it fits your need. If you compare two identical phones from two different companies, they can differ vastly in real world usage.

The same goes for the cameras in your phone as well. Better megapixel do not always mean better camera. There are so many tiny components, chips and the software itself that determine the quality of your photos. So, the next time you are buying a smartphone, study the real world performance.

2. You Should Always Close Background Apps

Ok, this one might seem a bit logical at first. Basically, what is believed is, if you have some apps open in the background, they drain too much of your battery and so you should close them every single time.

Maybe it was true once but not today. You see, software innovations have allowed companies to allow for these apps to remain open in the background while having a negligible effect on your battery. Both iOS and Android have become pretty efficient in doing so. Apple, a bit more.

In fact, it takes more battery to keep opening and closing all those apps than to simply use them from the background. That’s why earlier this year, Apple’s software SVP, Craig Federighi replied to a question by a user saying, even he doesn’t do so.

Today, it is only advisable to close a background app if it freezes or misbehaves. So, save yourself some time and just stop this habit already.

3. Charging Phones Overnight Kills the Battery

So, today’s smartphones are capable of so much things that we use them a lot. This means that the phones need to be recharged every single day, and what better time to charge them than when they are not in use.

Most people charge their phones overnight, so that when they wake up in the morning, they are ready to go. There is a myth however that doing so will actually kill your battery which, to be fair, was true many years back.

Improvement in batteries and charging technologies have made it possible for batteries to stop drawing electricity once they are fully charged, thus having no effect on the lifespan of your smartphone batteries.

The one thing to take care is to avoid over-heating which can happen sometimes during charging and is one of the reasons why your batteries die.

4. Companies Slow Down Your Phone On Purpose

Recently there has been an emergence of a new topic called “planned obsolescence” which means that as companies release newer phones at regular intervals, they deliberately slow down your current ones.

The reason for doing that is simple. Consumers would upgrade to a new one to get a much faster experience and so, many are accusing companies of this malpractice.

This is a myth however and the reasons are two fold. First, as software updates are released with more features, it increases the demand on your older hardware. The same goes with your apps. Hence your phone becomes slower.

The second reason is the psychological reason where to you, your older phone automatically starts to feel slow after watching the performance of the brand new phone, even though there is not that much of a difference.