When I heard about the Y2K panic in the mid 90s the very first thing I did (as a kid) was advance my clock to 12/31/1999 to see what would happen next.
IIRC when the date changed, it went back to some date in the 1980s I think. This was either windows 95 or 98, I can’t remember.
Anyway that advice to turn your computer off… What the heck? Then what, throw it away?