I used to think "lobotomy" meant a brain transplant, and that brain transplants existed. In other words I thought that people getting lobotomies were getting the brains of other people put into them .. organ donors presumably. I learned the truth when one day during a conversation about consciousness I started to say "if you get a lobotomy ..." and then I stopped myself realizing I was about to say something really stupid. I said "wait never mind" and let someone else talk for a minute.

Soap

I never understood how fax machines worked until about 2 years ago. I thought that that actual paper you put into the machine was somehow sent to the other person's fax machine, and it was the actual paper that you had put into yours. I was totally perplexed until my mom explained it to me.

Fax Machine Confusion

I used to think that data was stored on C.Ds by making a unique combination of scratches on the disc while it was in the drive, kind of like braille.

anonymous

I used to think that anything you did in front of the computer was able to be seen by others. I always refrained from saying stuff that I wouldn't say in public in front of the computer for fear than others could hear me!

anonymous

I used to beleve that if you turmrd off the NUM LOCK (i used the row of numbers above the letters)
on a computer, uyou would turn off the computer.

Anon

I thought a Walkman (tape-version of the Discman) only worked if you were walking and when you stopped it would go off automatically. I always begged my brother to let me try it, but he said that if little kids used them then they'd go deaf and end up like those people who walked around carrying boomboxes on their shoulders. That was the only way they heard music. It was like some punishment- you used a walkman too early so you're partialy deaf and you have to carry a bigger radio. What a dork I was.

Meg

When I was really young, I thought you had to be silent to take a photo - if not, the picture would display the sound for ever; I remember not wanting my mom to play the flute while my dad was about to take a photograph...

Mariane

My 6 year old son said to me after the Columbia space shuttle exploded, "someone musta accidentally pressed the "explode" button."

Anon

i once convinced myself that when i watched tv, the whole screen dissapeared and a new one popped up whenever a show or commercial was over. to test this hypothesis i decided to put a huge sticker dead center on the tv screen....

gus

when i was 3, my aunt had these small ceramic pigs...one day she was off in the other room or something and i was looking inside the vcr...i decided the inside of a vcr was a farm and put the pigs inside

gus

When I was about three we got our first VCR, and the way my parents unveiled it I believed my dad had built it himself.

Anon

My grandparents gave me and my sister pocket-size, transistor radios when we got old enough to operate them. I had no idea what a transistor was. I didn't even know it was an object; I thought the word was an adjective. I thought transistor meant "pocket-size".

Vicki J.

I used to believe that when you put a cd in a cd-player, thet the band was inside the speakers, and i used to try and get them out!

bewere of the dog/Clodagh

I used to believe there were little Elves inside Poloroid cameras "drawing" us and then giving us the picture right away. I could never figure out how they would draw us so good and so fast.

Anon

I used to believe CAT-scans could know what you were thinking, so I tried not to think so they could get accurate results.

Anon