Imagine a paper clip. Bend it at the same point over and over and it breaks. “On a microscopic level, bending beyond the elastic range makes the bonds between the atoms break and reform as they shift positions,” says Robert Hyers, head of the mechanical and materials engineering department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the US. “You get this accumulation of defects called dislocations where the atoms don’t line up, like wrinkles in a rug.” Too many dislocations hardens the metal, then it snaps, and your paper clip is ruined. The metal wires inside a cable work the same way.
Hopefully you’ll feel bad enough for those atoms to avoid some of these common problems. “One thing a lot of people do, including me sometimes when I’m lazy, is just pull on the long part of the cable to unplug it,” Pecht says. “That’s causing additional stress where it wouldn’t if you just pulled on the connector itself.”
A key source of strife comes from cables that are too short for the job, Hyers says. If you’re stretching the cable out to make it reach a socket, you’re hurting it. Or, if you find yourself lying in bed (or anywhere else for that matter) with your phone plugged in, pulling the connector at a sharp angle to keep using it, you’re asking for trouble.
“Another thing we see people do is plug their phone in and then stick it in the cup holder in their car to prop it up,” says Weins. “So, the phone is sitting on the cable and all the pressure of the phone weight, including bouncing as you drive, is right on that point.” Stop it. That’s just cruel.
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