Computers are everywhere these days, but where do you expect to find the static-sensitive computer chips?  Certainly not in your washer or dryer, eh?  Your vacuum cleaner?  Your car?  Your digitally-tuned radio or tv?  Yes, computer chips are in all these things!  Cars have had them since the 1980's.  How do you protect these devices?

How much static electricity is enough to ruin them?  If you walk across your carpet in cold weather and touch the doorknob ZAP!  That's 5 volts.  That's enough to cream your PC or whatever you touch that might have a chip.  It might not stop working altogether.  You might experience problems 'sometimes'.  No computer tech can fix intermittent problems with electronic gear.  It is FAR easier just to prevent the problem.

First, keep an unpainted piece of metal near where you run your electronics.  It might be a pair of scissors.  Touch it like it's hot!  As long as you don't move much, you are safely discharged to touch your device.  Remember, you have to touch your piece of metal every time you move enough to build up a charge again.  This is especially useful when you pump gas, to touch an unpainted part of your car before you pump, to prevent a rare gas explosion!

Second, buy some cheap fabric softener and a spray bottle.  Put about 1/4 fabric softener to 3/4 water. You can spray this on the carpet [not on the device] under where you use the device when you notice you're zapping doorknobs.  It also works for hard floors but it is very slippery, so be careful!  At the place where I worked and learned this technique, we had to do it about once a week in winter, maybe once a month or two in summer.  It was a carpeted workplace, but I also used it at home.

Now you know what the computer techs won't tell you in stores!

One final thing:  If you are selling electronics of any kind, make sure you wrap with static-free materials, and don't use styrofoam peanuts unless the device is sealed up in static-free wrapping!  Even then, I think peanuts might be risky.  You don't want it to be dead on arrival.  Save wrapping materials from electronics you buy and hoard them for the time you might want to sell that cordless phone or even the cellphone you replaced.  Or the PC you don't use anymore.  Or even that shortwave radio you don't listen to <click>