Question about static & laptops.

I've never posted in a forum before, and I'm not even entirely sure that this is the right forum for my question, but I won't know until I try I suppose. My question is about static and it's a 2 part question. 

#1- I've had my Dell Inspiron 5720 since December of 2012 and I've been running ESET antivirus on it since I bought it. I don't think the issue I'm concerned about is virus related, I'm pretty sure its something with the actual laptop itself, but I'm not very well versed in computers so I'm not 100% sure. Anyways, lately my computer screen will suddenly turn to static (like the static screen on a TV) and it usually does it when I'm in the middle of doing something, although its happened once as soon as the laptop had started up all the way and last night it did it when the laptop was trying to update before shutting off. It did this for the first time in July of last year when I was using Skype and I initially thought the problem was something with the Skype program, but the next time I happened I wasn't using Skype.  I'm not sure why it's happening more now (it's occurred about 7 times this year so far) and there doesn't seem to be any common denominator when it does happen. Does anyone have any clue as to what this might be, what's causing it, and how serious it is? I'm terrified of anything happening to this laptop and I'm usually pretty paranoid about making sure that I don't put it at risk. 

The second part of my question is...

#2- This past winter my house has been crazy with static, every single time I move it seems like I'm sparking static. Generally when I use my laptop I have it sitting in my lap or on a lap desk, and I've noticed that the recurring problem I"ve been having sometimes seems to occur when I move the laptop, even just slightly. So I'm wondering if maybe a static charge is effecting the laptop, is that something that can happen? 

I have photos of the screen when it's doing the static thing but I can't get it to upload.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone might be able to give me.