At our biweekly all-hands meeting, Jasper Wang, our Business Man, will usually share his screen with the appropriate slides. But this week, his computer was bogged down and wouldn’t load said slides. Jasper offhandedly remarked that he was paying the price for not having restarted his computer for a couple of weeks, and I similarly offhandedly implored everyone to restart their computers once a day, if not more. Immediately a horde of my coworkers began clowning my adherence to good computer hygiene, and even more so when I mentioned that I have been known to restart my computer four or five times a day.
Here’s the thing: I am right and they are wrong. There is no reason to not shut down your computer, at the very least, at the end of the day, and boot it up fresh the next morning. Their qualms were easily batted away. Oh no, what about my tabs?!?! Every browser now has the ability to restore your last session, so you can get your stinkin’ tabs back that way. (Side note: Excessive tabs are an argument for another day.) Who cares if it runs a little slow, I don’t need my computer’s full processing power and memory to write a post. It’s much nicer when you can flit around the internet at lightning speed without your browser slowing to a crawl. You are a slave to the machines. Fine, but my machine at least runs reliably and with great speed.
I will admit here that my position is based less on data and more on anecdotal evidence. While there are plenty of articles around the internet that recommend restarting your computer regularly for improved performance, as well as a handful of university department websites that do the same, I could not find an official statement on the matter from any of the big computer manufacturers. That makes sense to me, though; I can't imagine a company admitting that its computers need to be restarted daily in order to stay at peak performance, not in a world overrun by lackadaisical compu-sadists like my coworkers.
The point is, there doesn't seem to be a unified consensus on this matter, but that makes what I am saying—based in years of experience with a variety of computers of many brands, as well as my gaming PC, which I have built with my own sweat and toil over the last seven years or so—all the more important.
Readers of Defector, I am imploring you: Do not be lazy! Do not take for granted the millions upon millions of calculations that your hardworking CPU executes each and every day! It, like you, needs and deserves an occasional rest. Restart your computer!
Do it right now! The comment section will still be here when you boot back up. With modern solid state drives, it should not take longer than a minute or two. Use that time to go to the bathroom, refill your water, do a quick stretch, think of a funny comment to post. Whatever you like. But I promise you will notice a distinct difference if you restart your computer every day. Every restart frees up some memory, makes sure you don't postpone installing important updates, and generally improves reliability. Given that you're reading this during the workday, it feels likely that you, like us here at Defector, have an Email Job. Why not improve your experience by doing something that—I cannot stress this enough—has no drawbacks? Except possibly getting made of fun of by your coworkers. But I suspect they were less genuinely affronted by the Luis Computer Health Regimen and more just killing time because their shit was taking too long to load.
