Screensavers and How They Work.

Windows Display Properties where you can choose your screensaver.

Nowadays it's hard for someone to claim that they have not been in contact with a personal computer. The advances of electronics and personal computing have shaped the way we work and entertain ourselves (two activities that take up most of our time) in such a way that it would be quite a feat to be ignorant of them. Screensavers have graced the monitors of happy (and sometimes unhappy) computer users for a long time now. They come in all shapes and varieties and, in nine out of ten monitors (from any brands or labels), you will find these familiar screens greeting you every time you step out of the keyboard and mouse for a period of time.

But what is a screensaver exactly?

We have already established that whether you are in the comfort of your home or even trying to learn German in Switzerland, you will interact with computers, and thus, with screensavers. Screen savers are merely programs, executable files that had their extension changed from .exe to .scr. These three letters tell the computer which kind of file it is dealing with and, by putting the screensaver program into a particular Windows (or Linux, or Mac) folder and giving it the .scr extension we tell the computer to have it as one of the screensaver options for us to choose.

What do they do?

In the olden days (which doesn't mean that much in computer time) the CRT monitors, particularly the monochrome ones, had problems if a static image was displayed on screen for a long time (and, though they also had the problem of not being waterproof labels were not too interested in fixing it.) The phosphors, which were the ones that made all the little pixels in the display, would glow constantly for so long a period that it would actually affect the glass surface of the monitor. This would cause a discoloration that looked like a ghost image overlaying whatever else you wanted to see on the monitor and, in the process, making the work with a computer a visually appalling and eye popping experience. Luckily, advances in the technology used for displays and the advent of energy saver monitors have virtually eliminated the need to use screensavers. And we don't mean cutting edge technology: whether you are working at the NASA or went to learn French in France and are working with a decade old computers, you will probably never have this problem.

But then why?

Even if screensavers are basically useless to us today, we still use them. There are several reasons why we still cling on to these anachronic little critters, such as:

• Entertainment: Screensavers are just fun. Watching a little cartoon character dancing across the screen can be a refreshing sight after long hours at work.
• Security Concerns: Screensavers can be protected by a password to make sure that people can't use your computer while you are away. Most people on corporate settings use them this way.
• Uniform Look: Having the same screensaver gives a coherent look to the work place, looks tidy and gives you a more professional and elegant look.
• Distributed Computing: Finally, some screensavers are used to give the computer programming power when it is not hard at work. Many organizations have set such programs and users with their screensavers on are donating their PC's cycles to worthy causes like DNA investigation.