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Do you ever clean your phone?

loe

loe

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 7, 2016
9
2
Earth
Hi All:),
My name's loe, using my iphone is my daily necessary thing.
I know it's very dirty, but never know until this morning I learned from the news (Fox News—View Source) that Each square inch of a cell phone contains roughly 25,000 harmful bacteria, 18x more than toilet seats we all try to avoid.
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You know, I am really shocked. We wash our hands everyday, but our phones? So I am here want to ask whether everybody cleans your phone or not everyday? Do you think it's so dirty that we need to pay more attention? Which method/way you clean the phone usually or plan to use?
Thanks:).
 
loe said:
I learned from the news (Fox News—View Source) that Each square inch of a cell phone contains roughly 25,000 harmful bacteria, 18x more than toilet seats we all try to avoid.
Click to expand...
News media doesn't sell news. They sell advertising. And the more eyeballs they can get, the more they can charge for advertising. How do they get more eyeballs? By hyping everything.

Bottom line...if you have an immune system (and you do) there is no need to be worried about germs in your environment. If you are going to start cleaning your phone, you should probably also start wiping down the pens and pencils you use every day, your car steering wheel, shifter, and radio controls, your doorknobs, and on and on...
 
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chabig said:
News media doesn't sell news. They sell advertising. And the more eyeballs they can get, the more they can charge for advertising. How do they get more eyeballs? By hyping everything.

Bottom line...if you have an immune system (and you do) there is no need to be worried about germs in your environment. If you are going to start cleaning your phone, you should probably also start wiping down the pens and pencils you use every day, your car steering wheel, shifter, and radio controls, your doorknobs, and on and on...
Click to expand...
We all certainly worry about germs in our environment, after all, we wash our hands, clean and prepare/cook our food, etc. It's more down to what degree one would do these types of things.
 
Once a week with a damp cloth or my breath and cloth to wipe down the phone and it's all I need. I don't need a special cleaning solution as a wet damp micro-fiber cloth meant to be used for screen works 100% for me.
 
I swipe my phone on my sleeve, sometimes the carpet but mostly I don't clean it. And I hardly ever get sick. I contribute this fact to that I carry around a germ factory on my phone.
 
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I clean my phone on occasion with 70% rubbing alcohol. It removes grease and makes the phone feel fresh and clean. Other times I use my breath and sleeve.
 
loe said:
Does anybody know how to clean? I am waiting..:(
Click to expand...
Use a lysol/similar wipe, then damp cloth wrung out to wipe any excess lysol/similar chemicals off. I clean my phone fairly regularly, not always with lysol/similar wipe sometimes just with warm, dampened cloth. What I find amazing is that I often see phones with the most smudged lenses and think: “do you not understand that by cleaning your lense you have better quality images?”
 
chabig said:
News media doesn't sell news. They sell advertising. And the more eyeballs they can get, the more they can charge for advertising. How do they get more eyeballs? By hyping everything.

Bottom line...if you have an immune system (and you do) there is no need to be worried about germs in your environment. If you are going to start cleaning your phone, you should probably also start wiping down the pens and pencils you use every day, your car steering wheel, shifter, and radio controls, your doorknobs, and on and on...
Click to expand...

This is exactly the reason I don't clean my mobile regularly. Just when my screen gets blurry.
 
loe said:
I learned from the news (Fox News—View Source) that Each square inch of a cell phone contains roughly 25,000 harmful bacteria
Click to expand...
I think the most important thing to remember here is to stop watching Fox "News".

Second-most important thing is to stop freaking out about alarmist crap, including anything involving "harmful bacteria". If you feel uncomfortable reading about thousands of bacteria per ounce-fathoms or whatever, please, please don't ever consider what lives on the skin of your hands! You know, those you use to touch basically anything and everything, and even pick up food you eat with! ;)

Human beings have evolved alongside bacteria for millions of years. In fact we couldn't survive without them, and strong arguments have been made we live lives that are too clean these days. So do yourself a favor and forget all about what it was Fox Lies told you. Wipe off your phone if it looks dirty or smudgy, preferably using a microfiber cloth, maybe lightly moistened. Otherwise, don't worry about it. It's OK!

Do not under any circumstances use anything antibacterial, ever, including hand soap, dish-washing liquid, detergents, underwear...anything. All you do is train harmful bacteria to be tougher and better at what they do. If you have any antibacterial anything in your home, throw it away now. And don't buy any more. Also, do not use alcohol hand-gel, for the same reasons, unless your work requires it, like you're a nurse at a hospital or a retirement home for the elderly and so on.
 
Lennyvalentin said:
I think the most important thing to remember here is to stop watching Fox "News".

please, please don't ever consider what lives on the skin of your hands! You know, those you use to touch basically anything and everything, and even pick up food you eat with! ;)

Human beings have evolved alongside bacteria for millions of years.
Click to expand...

I wonder how much germs I get when traveling on subway trains. ;) Fox News? What is that? I watch RT on Facebook sometimes though :p
 
I wipe the front of my phone with a micro fibre cloth when it needs doing.

Around once a week I pop off the case and give the phone a clean all over.
 
I use a microfiber cloth to wipe off smudges pretty much everyday. About once a week (maybe more) I take my case off and turn off the phone and clean it with alcohol swabs.
 
Whenever I'm bored I use isopropyl solution with my handy Microfiber cloth and leave it squeaky clean. And then I grab it again with my filthy hands and repeat the process the next day. That way I can remind the germs who's the boss.
 
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a good way i " clean it " i bring it in the bathroom. Take a hot shower leave it on a folded towel and then i use the steam i wipe it all off. And comes out looking nice and shiny like the day i took it out of the white box. no chemicals no harsh abrasives just hot water.
 
The occasional wipe down with a microfibre cloth is fine. You can use an anti-bacterial wipe if you like but let's be honest. Yes you phone is covered in thousands and thousands of microbes and bacteria. But none of it is going to do you any harm.

There's less bacteria on your phone than there is on your face. Indeed avoiding bacteria is worse than having it.

Look at some people these days who are obsessed with having their home, their self, their children as clean as possible. They do anything they can to eradicate bacteria from their life. Bad, bad idea.

Why? Well it's simple, we need to be exposed to all of these things throughout our lives in order to build up our immune system. The less you're getting exposed to bacteria the less effective your immune system is by the time you reach adulthood.

Go out, roll on the dirt, catch a cold, be ill now and again, its better for you.
 
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loe said:
Hi All:),
My name's loe, using my iphone is my daily necessary thing.
I know it's very dirty, but never know until this morning I learned from the news (Fox News—View Source) that Each square inch of a cell phone contains roughly 25,000 harmful bacteria, 18x more than toilet seats we all try to avoid.
View attachment 677027 View attachment 677028
You know, I am really shocked. We wash our hands everyday, but our phones? So I am here want to ask whether everybody cleans your phone or not everyday? Do you think it's so dirty that we need to pay more attention? Which method/way you clean the phone usually or plan to use?
Thanks:).
Click to expand...


Microfiber cloth is all that is needed.
 
I wipe the camera lenses and the screen off for the sake of optical clarity and keep my cases clean for the sake of appearance, but no, I don't take the time to disinfect my phone as it seems futile to try and avoid germs. They're everywhere. My health does not seem to correlate at all to how clean or how grungy my phone is on any given day.

Some common sense precautions that I do take include wearing gardening gloves to avoid toxic pesticides and weed killers that drift over to my property from neighboring farms and to avoid parasites from wild animals and feral cats. I wash my hands after using the bathroom. I wash my hands before preparing food. I do not handle my phone or anything other than cooking utensils and food while preparing meals. I clean my counters before and after food prep. I use disposable wipes or paper towels rather than a dishrag because dish rags do tend to nurture mold and bacteria overgrowth. I disinfect doorknobs once a week. I put bandages and antibiotic gel over shallow cuts and scrapes. Truly deep cuts get referred to the doctor to be properly drained. That about covers it.

I did not used to bother with antibiotic gels for cuts and scrapes, but I have noticed in the last 20 years or so that some cuts don't seem to heal very well now without them and some scrapes end up badly infected-- it is true for all of my family, not just me, so it's not a matter of my aging. That was never the case in my childhood in the 1970's. I was a tomboy and a walking mass of cuts, bruises and scrapes that healed fast on their own after a routine cleaning. I think we have bred some stronger bugs since I was a kid.
 
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