If you have ever contacted a customer care or Information Technology (IT) expert because your phone had a technical hitch, there is a high likelihood that you were advised first to try switching it off and then on again.
This is exclusive to phones and most electronic devices where a simple restart fixes most technical glitches.
Lifewire, a tech company, explains that more than half of technical problems reported by electronic users can be solved by a simple reboot of the device.
How it works
Restarting your phone or other electronic device works because it wipes away the current state of the software.
If any code was stuck in a misbehaving state, it is swept away too, making the phone start working optimally again.
Mitchell Van Homrigh an IT expert explained, “When you restart, the computer or device will bring the system up from scratch, restarting all the software from square one so it will work just as well as it was working before.”
Lifewire details that when you use your smartphone, many behind-the-scenes processes stop and start depending on the apps and programs you are running.
“Many of these actions, as well as your operating system, leave behind a kind of electronic footprint, usually in the form of background processes you do not need running anymore, or programs that don't quite close all the way.
“These "leftovers" hog your system resources, and if this happens too much, you get problems like a sluggish system, programs that won't open, error messages, and other issues,” the tech company explains.
When you restart your phone, the momentary loss of power ends every program making the device start on a clean slate.
How often you should restart a phone
Homrigh reveals if you let a phone run non-stop it can slow performance, connectivity issues as well as other glitches.
“If you have a specific issue, like a certain app or page not loading the first step should be to restart your device.
“It is not essential to be constantly restarting your phone or tablet but doing it once every week or so will keep you ahead of the curve,” he advises.
