When you got your first, shiny new smartphone, you probably never imagined that it would become an indispensable way to manage your life. Essentially, a smartphone is a pocket computer and does far more than any other phone before it. Making and receiving calls is just one of many functions it performs.
The alarm on your smartphone might wake you up in the morning, the timer on it might help you perfect your boiled egg, and the GPS on it might direct you exactly where to go for a new appointment.
Throughout the day, your smartphone works quietly and humbly to serve your needs. In fact, you’ve probably lost track of how many times you use it.
It might help you calculate tips on the calculator, connect with friends on social media, entertain you with music as you drive, and serve you up a book to read while you’re waiting in line at the doctor’s office.
Naturally, you will want to take care of it from all kinds of disasters, from dropping it to spilling a drink on it to scratching its glass surface. If your smartphone is an apple device, a screen protector like BodyGuardz will serve you very well.
7 Common Mistakes
However, drop and spills and scratches aren’t the only way you could damage your smartphone. Here are at least 7 ways people often ruin their smartphones:
Mistake #1: Exposure to extreme temperatures
Extreme heat or cold can ruin your smartphone. Smartphones stop working if exposed to heat over 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
If you leave your smartphone in a car on a blistering hot summer day or near a log fire on a cold winter night, it will ruin your phone.
If you’re out there shoveling the snow when it’s below -40 degrees Fahrenheit and drop it in the snow, it will also stop working.
The best way to avoid this type of damage is to be aware and alert enough not to leave your smartphone where it might be exposed to high heat or freezing cold.
Mistake #2: Malware.
Malware doesn’t just attack your computers, it can also wreck havoc on your smartphone. Again, malware can slip in the same way—by downloading an app that has a virus or spyware.
The best precaution is to have an anti-virus device installed on your smartphone to protect it.
Mistake #3: Excessive data.
Your smartphone will stop working if you’re not careful. If your device runs out of storage space, it will stop working. Use an SD card so that you can transfer all your resource-intensive photographs to cloud storage.
Mistake #4: Leaving it on continuously.
Many users always leave their smartphone on. While it’s fine to do this for a week at a time, it’s not a good idea to leave it on continuously. You should shut it down for half-an-hour each week to clear the caches and restart the subsystems. In addition, you will increase RAM life and allow the diagnostic functions to run when you boot it up.
Mistake #5: Forcefully plugging it into recharge
There is something of an art to plugging in any type of USB connection. Your smartphone has a micro USB connection and you have a fairly good chance of getting it right the first time, but some days, you just can’t seem to do it. When you get frustrated and start to use excessive force, you risk ruining the tiny USB port. Patience and kindness are recommended.
Mistake #6: careless handling.
Smartphones shoved into tight jean back pockets or dumped into a handbag may not sound like a serious risk—except when a person sits down or dumps their handbag down heavily or hits it against a hard object.
Other ways of damaging the phone are by trying to talk while doing other things like putting grocery bags into a car, cooking over a hot stove, or operating some kind of machine. Since they are doing two things at the same time, it’s easy for the phone to slip out of their hands.
People have even gone as far as dropping their phones when they were getting into a car because it slipped out of a coat pocket and then driven over their phone.
Mistake #7: Water damage.
Water is not your Smartphone’s best friend. If you’re using your device when doing an outdoor activity like watering the lawn, running, or cycling, make sure that you have it in a waterproof case or bag. It’s also not a good idea to talk on a smartphone when you’re at a swimming pool or going out in a storm. When it comes to water damage, statistically dropping it down the toilet rates the highest! If dropped in water, shake, blow, and vacuum as much water as possible, then encase it in rice to absorb remaining moisture.
Human Error
Besides following the advice listed here, you should also avoid doing reckless things like rooting it, messing up the SIM card lock, or flashing the absolutely wrong ROM. However, the most frequent cause of damage is not caused by failing to follow best practices—it’s most often caused by human error. So, while you may be doing everything right when it comes to maintenance and protection, also make sure that you treat it with the loving care and attention it deserves.
