Something You Should Know
Water vs. Tech: How Moisture Ruins Your Devices & Why We Need Stress
Mon, 28 Apr 2025
Kibosh, chicanery, affluent and Seuss (as in Dr. Seuss) are words a lot of people mispronounce. This episode begins with the correct pronunciation of these and other mispronounced words you may not be aware you are saying incorrectly. http://mentalfloss.com/article/32273/11-common-words-youre-probably-mispronouncing You (or someone you know) have most likely dropped your phone in the toilet, spilled coffee on your laptop or had some other electronic device suffer “death by liquid.” Our electronic devices are very much NOT water-proof. Why is that? That horrible feeling you get when you get your devices wet is a combination of guilt, panic and horror. Yet, it happens to almost everyone. Why can’t they make these devices more resistant to liquids? That is an interesting question which I explore with Rachel Plotnick. She is a historian and cultural theorist whose research and teaching focus on information, communication, and media technologies. She is also author of the book License to Spill: Where Dry Devices Meet Liquid Lives (https://amzn.to/3Ru1xyz). Stress kills! But it is also good for you. In fact, GOOD stress can actually counter the effects of the bad stress in your life. So, what is the difference between good and bad stress? And how can you make stress work for you? Here to explain all this and the science behind it, is Dr. Sharon Bergquist, MD. She is an award-winning physician and visionary researcher renowned for spearheading a science-based approach to applying lifestyle as medicine. She has a Ted-Ed video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-t1Z5-oPtU) about how stress affects you which has been viewed over 8 million times and she is author of the book The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier (https://amzn.to/43XOj4B). Most of us have some trouble remembering the names of people right after we meet them. It seems doing something with your eyes and making a few movements with your body can help you recall names according to some research. Listen and I’ll tell you how it works. https://www.livescience.com/1473-moving-eyes-improves-memory-study-suggests.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are some commonly mispronounced words?
They really do accompany us to the bathroom and the pool and the laundry room. And so I think it's naive to imagine this kind of total separation between our technologies and these kind of wet experiences of everyday life.
And so what's the answer if you ask the people that make the phones and the devices, why aren't these waterproof? My guess would be because that would cost an awful lot of money. That's not our job. I mean, I don't know what they would say, but has it ever come up? And what do they say if it has?
I do think we're seeing some improvements in this regard. Partly it depends on whether you're looking at aftermarket solutions like various cases or coatings that you can get put on after the fact versus you're buying a product that's water resistant or waterproof. You're right that cost is often a big factor in these situations.
And a lot of times you have to make the product like a smartphone bulkier or a little bit more difficult to use in order to also waterproof it. So part of it is a logistical issue. The other challenge I think is, When it comes to really clarifying to people what's the difference between something being water resistant and waterproof, I think consumers have a lot of confusion about this.
Coatings can wear off and degrade over time. And so it's kind of a murky area, I think, between making some design improvements, but also helping to better educate consumers about what their devices can tolerate and what they really can't.
What is the difference between something being waterproof and water resistant? I've always felt like, you know, we'll call it water resistant. So if something happens and water gets into it, we didn't say it was waterproof. It's just like we try to keep the water out.
Actually, what's interesting is that in the watch industry, the term waterproof was actually banned in advertising because it was misleading and companies would use it all the time. Oh, sure, it's waterproof. And so the Federal Trade Commission actually did pass some legislation saying companies weren't allowed to use the term waterproof anymore.
That's not true across all industries, but I think it is somewhat of a taboo word now in many situations because companies don't want to overpromise in terms of what the device can withstand. And even when it comes to thinking about water resistance, it's a really complicated topic. It has a lot to do with how the device is tested. So it might have to be, is it splashed in water?
Is it submerged in something? How long is it submerged? Can it tolerate being in soapy water versus a clean sink? So there are actually quite a bit of nuances when it comes to really what counts as resistance or different kinds of wetness.
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Chapter 6: How does stress relate to technology?
Well, these devices have become so much a part of our life that when you think about all the times we interact with them, just the law of averages is going to say there's going to be accidents. Things are going to go wrong and they're going to break.
Absolutely. And I think that's why we need as much as possible designs that support the way our bodies are. We all fumble. We all get busy. We all make mistakes. Our hands don't always work the way they're supposed to. People have tremors. People have Parkinson's, arthritis. There are so many different reasons as to why we might knock over a cup of coffee or drop something accidentally.
And so I think that design needs to kind of adapt to meet the messiness of our bodies and the messiness of our environments, because it shouldn't be so costly just to be a human being that dumps over a cup of coffee.
What is it that happens to the phone when it, I mean, as you said, it depends on the liquid, but just with regular fresh water, what is it that it does to the phone that makes it so if it just dries out, it should work fine. I have the key fob for my car. I've put it in the wash twice now. It works fine after it gets dry. It doesn't ruin it. Of course, that's just a key fob. It's not a computer.
But still, what is it that happens that is so fatal to the phone?
A lot of it has to do with what parts of the device the liquid gets into and how far it gets in there. So you're dealing with sensitive electronic equipment, you're dealing with chips and lots of connections. And as I mentioned before, that issue of corrosion is a big one. So in the short term, you might not see any issue at all, but metal corrodes very easily from liquid
And as it corrodes over time, you're going to be able to see, you know, maybe your phone is just running slower. Maybe it isn't charging as effectively. Basically, those insides are withering over time. And that's one of the real challenging parts about liquids is that it's not necessarily just that immediate incident.
It can be, hey, even three, six, nine months from now, I'm going to see that something's just not working quite right because that corrosion is taking place over time.
But you're not suggesting, I don't think, you're not suggesting that manufacturers are up to something here, that they're trying to not make them more water resistant so that they can make more money. Or are you?
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