screensaver

plural screensavers · alternative screen saver · alternative screen-saver

1. computingA computer program that displays aesthetic patterns or images when the computer is not being used, originally intended to prevent screenburn.

   I configured my screensaver to appear after only two minutes, because I enjoyed watching it so much.

2. proscribedThe background picture of a computer, smartphone, or similar mobile device.

   While we waited for Zac to be taken into surgery, I thought of all of his suffering up to this point […] It brought to mind the screensaver that Zac, a few months earlier, had changed his Ipod to.

   2015, Carol Ann Bartz, chapter 36, in The Believer: An Inspirational Story of Zachary David Bartz (The Boy Who Never Gave Up), →ISBN

   5 more examples

   But she changed her screensaver, which was a photo of Julian eating scrambled eggs—he was smiling, holding his fork away from himself, as if he were waving the eggs at her—and replaced it with a photo of Olivia, looking up from her desk […]

   2008, Joshua Henkin, Matrimony, Vintage, →ISBN, page 163

   If he wanted praise, or sympathy, or the chance to talk over a sensitive subject, he turned to me. A friend told me that she sat down at her computer one day to discover that her husband had changed her screensaver to read: “Be nice to Lloyd.

   2012, Gretchen Rubin, Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon Self-Control, and My Other Experiments in Everyday Life, Harmony, →ISBN

   You can tell a lot about a person by the desk they keep. Her real name was Mary Stachowicz but we decided to call her Jenny Talia. It's funnier for us. She uses bulldog clips, which I think is a bit lesbiany, but I guess it's right for the character. Her screensaver is a picture of Cher, not the actual Cher, but her mother in fancy dress.

   2012, Johnny McKnight, Double Nugget

   When I arrived at the lab this morning he was back sitting in front of his computer, a million miles away, leaning forward on his elbows and staring into the depths of space. He has changed his screensaver again. The Orion nebula has been replaced with some other astronomical scape, far bleaker in its appearance but more realistic. It looks like the outermost edge of the universe.

   2016, Austin Duffy, This Living and Immortal Thing, Granta Books, →ISBN

   I tiptoed over to Trent's nightstand and took his phone into the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bathtub as I entered his code. When I saw that he'd changed his screensaver from our wedding picture to a picture of Diamond, my blood began to boil. I couldn't believe that he'd done that.

   2016, Tamia Gore-Felton, Bangles and Broken Hearts 3: Return of the Bangles, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 97