Why do you get shocked touching a door knob?

Answer 1

You get shocked touching a door knob because of the friction between the carpet and the soles of your shoes. By walking across a rug or carpet, your body starts to become negatively charged because of the electrons picked up from the carpet. When you go to touch the door knob, your negative charge repels the electrons on the door knob, making the knob positively charged (the door knob becomes positive because of the exchange of electrons to the hand). Since positives attract negatives, your hand has a shock between the door knob because of the exchange of electrons. The only reason why there is an exchange of electrons is because the door knob is being neutrilized just like your body is releasing that small amount of electrons to make it have no charge.

Answer 2

You may experience a shock when touching a door knob if there is a build-up of static electricity on your body, which can discharge when you touch a metal object. This is more likely to happen in dry conditions when there is less moisture in the air to help dissipate the static charge.

Answer 3

You are constantly generating a static electric charge on your body by the action of rubbing two dissimilar materials together. (Electrons get rubbed off of one material and attached to the other, but that process represents a longer explanation.) Normally, this small electric charge disappears because water molecules in the air pick up the charge from your body.

In winters, the air gets drier. And drier air means fewer water molecules and the build up of static electric charge can create quite a large voltage. Then when you touch a conducting object such as a piece of metal or another person, that charge gets discharged as a small spark, and you feel the shock from that.