Ew... Your Phone is Gross - Watch Out!

Everyone freaks out about germs. We are obsessed with staying clean – always wanting to sanitize our hands before eating, being extremely cautious in public bathrooms, and wearing flip flops in our communal showers. However, what if I told you that the dirtiest thing you have ever encountered is the device that you hold for almost all of the entire day. The device that you sleep next to, smother your face with, and carry in all situations.

According to TIME Magazine, a recent study has shown that “more than 17,000 bacterial copies” were found on the cell phones of high school students. To put this in better comparison – this is approximately 10 times more bacteria found on many toilet seats. You think that a toilet seat is disgusting, yet in reality, your smart phone is a lot filthier.

Because we have our cell phones glued to our entire existence, we do not really think of how gross the device actually is. But in actuality, this small object is most likely the most germ-contaminated item you touch during the whole day.

Image: Phone Dirtier Than Public Toilet

Think about it. You text, call, e-mail, and go through multiple apps with the same device that you may use in the bathroom, on the bus, and at the gym. Rarely anyone cleans their phones, allowing all these bacteria to continue to build up.

To make matters worse, believe it or not, your phone is a perfect breeding spot for bacteria and germs to grow. Since we use our smart phones quite frequently throughout the day, we keep these electronic devices nice and toasty, which is what bacteria love. The warmer the location, the happier it is for bacteria to reproduce. This does unfortunately create problems on our hands (metaphorically and physically).

In a certain study done in 2011, researchers of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine discovered that fecal matter was found on “one out of every six smartphones”. In other words, your phone may even have fecal components on it right now and you would have never known.

Image:  Bacteria on Phone

Although this study is a bit outdated, it still screams a valid point that can still be considered in the year of 2018. People still continue to bring their phones to the bathrooms. Therefore, fecal matter will also continue to prevail on our smartphones (as horrible as that is).

PhoneSoap, a company that sells devices that cleans phones, greatly sums it up. A phone is “the third hand you never wash”. After going to the bathroom or eating our food or touching something that may be considered slightly dirty, we either sanitize or wash our hands. But, this is impossible for our phones. We do not even consider sanitizing our smart phones. It’s just not right.

But by not cleaning our phones, we have to face the negative side effects.

Season by season, students at Penn State get sick. Many of us catch the common cold or the flu. Some of us may even get Bronchitis or Pneumonia. But no matter the sickness, it’s all due to infection, germs, and viruses. Yes, we may get sick because of the close contact we share with our other friends who are also sick. But, is our sickness actually being caused by our smart phones? After all, this device houses many more bacterial colonies than you think. 

Dr. Jennifer Ashton also agrees that individuals may catch the cold and the flu through the constant use of our phones.

Not only may our smart phones cause the common sickness many Penn State students have to go through, but it can also cause “pink eye, diarrhea and [even] acne” – all because of a dominant form for bacteria called coliform found on many smart phones.

Now I don’t know about you, but all this writing and research is making me want to go clean by phone right now. And as a reader, you are probably thinking the same. Even though it may seem like our phones are clean on the outside – trust me, they are not. On a microscopic level, you will be amazed to see all the crawling nastiness occurring on your screen.

Keep in mind that although smart phones may pose positive impacts on our society, is it really worth the disgusting germs we have to encounter every day? Will we as humans ever overcome and fix how nasty our phones actually are? Or will our smart phones continue to dominate our society, despite the harmful bacteria?

The world may never know.