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Cellphone Touchscreens Are Dirty, Unicorns Not Real

by Terrence O'Brien on October 15, 2010 at 03:25 PM

Germ Covered iPhone
Guess what. Your cell phone is filthy. You might not be able to see it, but it's covered in germs. It doesn't matter if you've got an old-school flip phone with a numerical dial pad or a flashy new iPhone 4; either way, it's a disease farm. British researchers told the Sacramento Bee that the average cell phone is home to 18-times as much bacteria as the handle of a men's room toilet. Of course, public restrooms are typically cleaned on a regular basis, while you, at best, occasionally rub the screen of your Droid X against your already dirty shirt. Timothy Julian of Stanford University co-authored a study on the spread of viruses, and found that, if you smear a virus across a cell phone's touchscreen, 30-percent of it will find its way onto your fingers, and eventually into your eyes, mouth and nose.

Then again, germ-covered cell phones, filthy ATMs and gross 3-D glasses are pretty much an accepted fact of life at this point. If you're really worried about picking up bacteria from your cell phone, you can always make a stylus out of sausage.

Tags: cellphone, cellphones, germs, health, iphone, smartphone, top, touchscreen

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