Dirty Secrets: How Dirty is your Smartphone and How to Keep it Clean?

By Vijaykumar Meti
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How many times in a day do you touch your mobile phone? Well, of course, you touch your cell phone all the time, and even keep it close when you are not holding it.

Have you ever thought how dirty your cell phones could be?!

We always touch dirty things, and eventually we always keep touching our phones as well, which transfers the bacterias/germs to our devices. While, we wash our hands, but never clean our phones!

SEE ALSO: Here's what you gave up, for the price of that one Facebook quiz!

Various researches have suggested that, phones are known to carry 82 percent of the most common bacteria which have also been identified on people's fingers.

How Dirty Is Your Smartphone?

How Dirty Is Your Smartphone?

According to several studies, your smartphone is 10 times dirtier than your average toilet seat. The average smartphone carries 11,020 germs per square inch, while the toilet seat have only 50 bacteria per square inch on its surface.

According to microbiologist, there are around 20 to 30 percent of infectious diseases that can be transferred from fingertip to phone glass and can survive on your device for several days at a time.

What makes your phone so dirty

What makes your phone so dirty

You touch your phone with gross unwashed hands all day and rest it on every germ-laden surface, that is physically available to you.

Your handset picks up germs from your mouth, nose and ears when you use it. You place it on dirty surface like germ-ridden kitchen counter or on the desk at work station, which contains 79,000 germs per square inch on computer alone.

A study reveals that 75 percent of people have admitted for using their smartphone in the washroom. Even if the toilet seats are clean, but other parts of the bathroom, including the toilet paper roll, flush are some of the germiest surface that you will come into contact, during the course of your day.

Well, the biggest source of germs is when you hand your phone to others. Our bodies are generally used to some set of germs that we are carrying, when a friend touches your phone a whole new ecosystem of germs are introduced to our phones.

Will you smartphone make you sick?

Will you smartphone make you sick?

Smartphone with germs are not actually that dangerous to adults with fully functioning immune systems. According to a University study, most of the germs on the phones were harmless. While, some disease-carrying bacteria such as Staphylococcus Arureus or E.Coli appeared on phones, but not frequently.

Further, the study believes that germ-laden phones can be dangerous for infants, small child, older person or person with very compromised immune system.

How to clean your smartphone?

How to clean your smartphone?

There are some phone cleaning myths such as windows cleaner or spritzing the scree with water won't kill any germs. Since smartphones are full of sensitive electronic circuitry, you need to keep water and window cleaner as far away from them as you can.

Smartphone cleaning tips

Smartphone cleaning tips

There are many antibacterial wipes made specifically to clean electronics. However, you need to be careful as there are many wipes that can damage your smartphone. So don't use normal antibacterial wipes or hand sanitizer that are used to humans.

To keep your device squeaky clean, power off the device for every other day and remove protective case and wipe down the phone with antibacterial wipes. Researchers have found that the dirtiest part of the phone is the home button.

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