Do You Really Need To Avoid Using Your Phone While It's Charging?

Keeping your smartphone's battery healthy is crucial to maintaining its lifespan, but how careful do you actually need to be to protect it? Over the years, many rumors have spread regarding how to maximize battery life across all your devices. One of the most common suggestions is that you shouldn't use your phone while it's charging. However, while there's certainly a grain of truth to the assumption underlying that claim, it's an unfounded fear in normal situations.

Charging a phone is a more delicate process than we can see with the naked eye. Modern smartphones send information to the charging brick, telling it how much power to send downstream. This ensures that your phone can charge at its top speed without taking in too much power and being damaged. It's easy to see why people might think that using the phone while it's plugged in could disrupt this process, but the truth is that you almost never need to worry. At the heart of the notion that you shouldn't use your phone while it charges are two assumptions: that you could overheat the phone, or that you could damage it long term. However, it's incredibly common to use a plugged-in device, and modern smartphone batteries are designed to withstand that kind of use. Here's what to know so you can set your mind at ease.

Short of the most extreme edge cases, you can use your phone while it's charging. The reason some people believe you should not use the phone while it charges is that charging heats up the battery, and using the phone also heats up the battery, so some may fear overheating issues. It's true that heat damages smartphone batteries. However, your phone is designed to be used while it charges. When in use, smartphones generally slow down the speed at which they charge, both because you're using some of that power and also because the system is prioritizing battery safety.

If you use a wireless charger, you may notice that it warms your phone up. This is because wireless charging is inefficient. Energy must transfer through the back panel of your phone, and through your phone's case if you use one, to get to the metallic charging coil underneath. Some of that energy dissipates in the process, where it turns into heat. Even so, you can use your phone while charging it wirelessly. However, if the phone becomes uncomfortably hot to hold, it's best to take it off the charger and wait for it to cool off before trying it again.

If we were to imagine a scenario where using your smartphone while it charges could harm the phone, it would look something like this: you're wirelessly charging an old phone that already has battery issues in direct sunlight on a sweltering summer day while playing a graphically demanding mobile game. In other words, you need to be doing a lot of things wrong at the same time before using and charging the phone simultaneously becomes a problem.

A more valid concern here is that, if you consistently use the phone while it charges, you could damage the battery's overall lifespan. Your phone's battery has a certain number of charge cycles that it can handle over the course of its lifespan, and using your phone in a way that puts strain on the battery can chew through your charge cycles. If a battery becomes unhealthy, it will often stop holding a full charge, or drain much more quickly than it should. Still, you don't need to worry that using your phone while it's charging will cause that sort of degradation.

It does put a bit more stress on the battery to use your phone while charging, and while it's hard to say exactly how much impact that will have on the battery's lifespan, the impact is likely to be minimal. Again, though, your phone's battery management is advanced enough to ensure that the cells are never strained beyond their normal operating parameters. The only time you should worry is in extremely hot environments, especially while doing things like playing demanding mobile games. We're not talking about "Candy Crush." Think more like "Genshin Impact" or "Fortnite." And even then, you don't need to worry if the phone gets a tiny bit warm. Only start to worry when it becomes uncomfortably hot, if you get a warning notification, or if the phone abruptly powers down. Ultimately, the quality of your smartphone charger matters more than how you use the phone while charging.