A friend of mine is an IT engineer and he very often accuses me of things that I personally consider nonsense. I’ve gotten used to him talking to me about plugging in my Wi-Fi, my passwords, and charging my phone. Admittedly, I often leave it on the charger overnight. And I know that’s not right. However, he recently read me the way I put it on the charger. At first I felt like he was just trying to look smart, but when he explained the mistake I was making, I had to admit it made sense.

I never would have thought that the order in which I plug the power cord into the outlet and into my phone mattered that much. I already had the connector shoved in the device, but then when I put the charger in the outlet, it echoed next to me: “And you know you’re going to ruin your phone soon enough that way?” And then came a long speech about what I was doing wrong. Unfortunately, it was justified.

The voltage that destroys your devices

Most of you probably plug your mobile phone into the charger so automatically that if someone asked you where you put the cable first, you probably wouldn’t know the answer. But in reality, this question is very important. Always plug the cable into the power source first, i.e. the wall socket. Then, after a few seconds, connect your phone to it.

“If you plug the charger into the socket first and then connect it to the phone, the charger’s internal circuitry has time to stabilise the output voltage before connecting the device, reducing the risk of overvoltage reaching sensitive electronics,” explains the Smartphone Charging Technical Council. In layman’s terms: plugging the adapter into an outlet for a very short period of time results in an unavoidable surge. If the phone is already connected to the cable, it is at risk of being damaged.

If you charge your phone, you can easily damage it by plugging in the wrong cables. What exactly do many people make mistakes in? ━━ If you charge your phone, you can easily damage it by plugging in the wrong cables. What exactly do many people make mistakes in? ( Source: Onur Binay /  Unsplash+ )

Same procedure when disconnecting

It’s not just about how you plug in the charger, but also how you unplug it. Once the device is fully charged, you need to disconnect the charger from the charging port first, then from the socket. The risk of consequential damage increases with each successive occurrence of this error. So, if you only plug your mobile phone in wrongly occasionally, it may be that the problem never manifests itself, but it is pointless to take the risk.

Besides, if you have friends like me, plugging your phone into the charger correctly not only avoids the risk of damaging it, but also long speeches. I’ll be wary of the situation if only because listening to him rant for an hour about his favorite topics is not exactly the ideal idea of how to spend an afternoon.