system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does earth's magnetic field affect electronics?

I know that if you put a magnet near a flash drive it can erase memory, also near CRT moniters it can distort the picture but how does earth's magnetic field affect things?
gpt
Static magnetic fields don't affect flash drives, which store data as charge on floating gates. They can affect hard disk drives however, as these store data in the magnetic orientation of bits. The magnetic fields in question are much stronger than Earth's, so it wouldn't have any appreciable effect.

In general you need very sensitive electronics for Earth's magnetic field to have any effect. This is used e.g. in Hall probes, which are designed specifically for measuring magnetic fields.

Non-static (i.e., quickly varying) magnetic fields can affect electronics though, because varying magnetic fields induce voltages in circuits. This isn't relevant in the case of Earth's field (which only varies over very long time scales). An exception could be if your device is spinning around sufficiently fast, as it would then "see" a rotating (and thus varying) mangetic field in its frame of reference.