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.

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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.)

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,........

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