Smartphones have become very important in our day-to-day life and are now like a portable extension of ourselves into the digital world. So it’s necessary to take care of them, but many people falter badly in this area and do things that damage their phone without even knowing.

Here are some things you should stop doing to your mobile device to increase it’s lifespan.

1. Bad Charging Habits

Your phone’s battery degrades with every charge cycle (that is, a full charge of a phone’s battery from 0% to 100% and discharge from 100% to 0%). So, over time and as your phone goes through lots of charge cycles, the battery will degrade. According to manufacturers, a phone’s battery will degrade to 80% of its original capacity after 400 charge cycles. That can take about two years, but your charging habits can speed up or slow down that degradation.

Avoid bad charging habits like draining your device to 0% before charging it, charging your phone to 100%, and using your smartphone while it’s charging. The best thing for your battery’s health is to plug it in when it drops to 30% and unplug it when it hits 80%. Correcting your poor charging habits will help keep your smartphone healthy and increase it’s lifespan, and reduce the damage caused to your phone battery.

2. Using Cheap Charging Cables

It can be tempting when you’re looking for a new charging cable, and you see unbranded ones going for way less than branded ones. Trust me, it’s not worth the savings and could end up costing you more money and even your life.

Yes, you read that right. By using uncertified cables, you put yourself at risk of fire and electrocution. As for your device, unbranded cables can severely damage the battery. Branded charging cables have all sorts of safety features and protection mechanisms that you don’t find in most uncertified/cheap cables.

3. Not Protecting Your Phone

We all love the nice look of our phone bare and might even be tempted to use it like that. This is an urge that must be resisted. A case and screen protector do more than protect your phone’s external body- they also protect your phone’s internal components. You see, whenever your phone falls without a case (a good solid one, I might add), not only do you damage the external parts of your phone, but the internal parts and the structural integrity of your phone is too. The more your device falls, the more the internal and external components wear and loosen.

A good case keeps your phone looking good and reduces the damage caused by the impact of dropping your phone. If you have butterfingers, an armor case is your best bet.

4. Not Keeping Your Phone Up-to-date

Security patches and updates are no joke, and you should take them seriously. After all, companies won’t spend money and resources on them if they aren’t necessary. These updates are essential, and they protect your phone from all kinds of malware and cyber-attacks. Also, update your apps (especially your social media apps and apps that contain sensitive information about you) as they often have bug fixes and security updates.

Be very mindful of the apps you download, especially fake apps that try to mimic the features and services of popular apps. Said apps are often filled with adware and can deliver viruses to your device. Also, be careful where you download your apps from, don’t download apps from sketchy app stores because some sneak in viruses, spyware, and other security threats into your phone as you download apps from their servers.