It seems to be a universally accepted fact that you should restart your smartphone regularly. Almost every source, from manufacturers and service providers to tech experts and journalists, advises you to do it, and many modern handsets even have a feature to automate regular restarts. But is it true? Have you ever taken your phone to be repaired only to be told it’s dead because you failed to reset the system with sufficient frequency?
The more we thought about it, the more we wondered if this might be a bit of a myth. We’re not suggesting it is some sort of deep-state conspiracy or cover-up — perhaps it started circulating as common-sense advice many years ago without anyone stopping to consider if it’s still helpful today. Let’s look at the evidence.