system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is rebooting your computer/smartphone the go-to method for solving a problem with it?
gpt
Each program and process in a computer is constantly using memory space, registers, temp files, swap files, etc.  You can think of all of these as a giant whiteboard where the program or process is continuously writing and erasing things that it needs to remember.  When a program or process erases something, it may not get all the marks off the board.  After awhile, the white board gets pretty messy and hard to read and that can cause problems.  When a computer reboots one of the things it does during the start-up process is to thoroughly erase the whiteboard so it is ready to use.  This will often fix a computer problem.