When Ignorance is NOT Bliss

Let's go back to some of the many IT misconceptions we discussed in our INTRICT class, one I remember us talking about was the misconception that using plastic screensavers(the one we used to put over our computer monitors) which we believed to filter out radiation actually worked. We learned that this isn't true because in order for a screensaver to really filter out the little radiation our computers produce(very low and extremely low frequency radiation), we would need to install glass screensavers WITHIN our computers. Along with that misconceptions the false belief that being around computers could cause you cancer. Like I already said, computers only give off very little radiation, not enough to cause health problems. I used to have a professor who used to warn us not to put our mobile phones around our body because she believed them to cause radiation which she said may lead to infertility. I see now that this is a lot far fetched.

I also remember us talking about the Y2K bug and how a lot of people freaked out back then because they believed that the Y2K bug would lead to them losing everything they saved in the bank and everything they have on their computers. In reality, the Y2K bug was a very simple problem. All they had to do is fix the date and everything would come back to normal.

Another misconception we used to believe was that using mobile phones in gasoline station might cause a combustion. This is completely ridiculous to me because, what does your phone have to do with it???

These misconceptions prove that we fear what we do not know.We should keep learning new things to discover what works and what does not.