eli5 Why does turning your device on and off often solve a technical issue?
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Information is stored in 1 and 0.
1 means “on” and 0 means “off.”
This can vary to be “signal or no signal,” “charge or no charge,” “true or false” or similar variations on “on” and “off.”
Long strings if these make up information. (10011101 as an example of an 8-bit byte.)
Sometimes, a computer fails to put a 1 or a 0 where it belongs. Many times, these can self correct.
Sometimes, they don’t. The more.of this garbage data that accumulates, the worse a computer can run as it can sometimes run into things like “I need this address for 10011100 but it already has 10100011 in it! Is anyone using this value at this address? No? Cool. Let me clear and use that!” And various other slowdowns.
When you restart, you’re basically clearing all of the ones and zeroes that might be a little out if place from operating and re-reads and realigns all the ones and zeroes to their starting positions. Much like starting with a clean kitchen makes for easier cooking rather than having to clean dishes and surfaces as you go before cooking, you’ve given the computer a fully cleaned and organized kitchen to tear apart whilst cooking once more!
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