The risk is if hardware is 'shocked' then it will either be ruined intermittent problems or most likely dead will not work again. We will be addressing this issue more shortly. It is most commonly caused by the contact and separation of materials. The area of contact, the speed of separation, relative humidity and other factors determine the amount of charge created in this process. An example of this occurrence would be a person walking across the floor.
Static electricity is generated as their shoe soles contact and separate from the floor surface.
The amount of static electricity generated will increase due to the size of the sole surface, lower humidity and increased speed of movement. The shock we receive upon touching another object is the transfer of the static charge or balancing of our charge to that of the object. Virtually all materials including water and dirt particles in the air are subject to this occurrence. We will be adding more on this subject soon, but the point we would like to get across is that static is everywhere on your clothes on your carpets and if you enter you computer without precautions you are potentially putting yourself at risk. We would rather people spent a few pounds in getting a mat and strap which will last, especially if you are getting into computers and are going to be entering other peoples systems etc, a few pounds spent could save a lot of money if new hardware is needed.