24 January 2014

Don't panic about cleaning your phone

| johnboy
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The ANU has a slightly strange announcement debunking mobile phone sanitising products (which I have only just learned is a thing):

The popularity of smart phones has seen the emergence of products which claim to kill germs found on the devices because of everyday use. A quick search on the internet has found at least half a dozen products.

“It is true that UV light can kill germs,” Professor Collignon says.

But he says there’s no guarantee the devices will prevent illness.

“Because your hands touch so many other things in the environment, you will still have to wash your own hands,” he says.

Professor Collignon says he doesn’t want to discourage people from buying the new devices and apps, if they want to.

“But if your phone is only used by you, then your risk of catching a disease only reflects what you’ve touched.”

He says the age-old advice of having good hand hygiene before touching your mouth, nose or eyes, should apply in all situations.

Glad we cleared that up.

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Public health officers used to say that 90+% of public telephone handsets had detectable traces of faeces – no-one was shitting on them, people just weren’t washing their hands.

Which brings me to my bugbear (pun intended) – toilet doors. Not much point in me washing my hands if the people before me haven’t. I want all toilet doors to either be automatic, or to open outwards so I can push them with my foot or hip or shoulder.

Of course you have the same problem with taps – use dirty hand to turn on tap, wash hands under running water, use clean hand to turn off tap that you just dirtied. This presumably explains the growth of sensor taps, and prior to that push-taps which turn themselves off. (Though only about one in ten push-taps seem to work effectively.)

IP

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd12:44 pm 27 Jan 14

Masquara said :

Wow! That’s the province of Today Tonight and A Current Affair – twice a year they run an item about the germs in shopping baskets. Way to go, ANU Tabloid!

Agreed. Dumb topic. Why don’t they throw in things like keyboards or door handles or lift buttons or steering wheels… I could go on but I’m sure my point is clear.

Wow! That’s the province of Today Tonight and A Current Affair – twice a year they run an item about the germs in shopping baskets. Way to go, ANU Tabloid!

In one Department I worked for we had a tea lady of eastern European heritage. Every Monday morning the cups (and the beverage therein) smelt and tasted of bleach. Definitely germ-free.

OpenYourMind9:59 pm 25 Jan 14

At the risk of ‘cool story Bro’, when I started full time work in 1986 for an accounting firm called Deloitte Haskins and Sells, not only did they still have a tea lady who (free of charge) bought round cups of tea and biscuits, they also had telephone sanitisers. Every time the telephone sanitiser came round, I couldn’t help but think of Hitchikers guide.

switch said :

Antagonist said :

Does this mean I should be wearing a condom when having phone sex?

Condoms are to be worn in all conceivable occasions.

Condoms don’t guarantee safe sex…a bloke who was wearing a condom whilst making love to a woman, was shot dead by the woman’s husband.

switch said :

Antagonist said :

Does this mean I should be wearing a condom when having phone sex?

Condoms are to be worn in all conceivable occasions.

But only if fitted to the phone.

Antagonist said :

Does this mean I should be wearing a condom when having phone sex?

Condoms are to be worn in all conceivable occasions.

Don’t clean your phone.

Phone germs are necessary to challenge, stimulate and strengthen our immune systems against the god-knows-what they put in our food, our fluids and the air we breathe.

There’s far too much cleanliness going around these days.

mobile phone sanitising products
>doesn’t want to discourage people from buying the new devices and apps
>new devices and apps
>and apps
>apps

What is this I don’t even…

Does this mean I should be wearing a condom when having phone sex?

This advice is nonsense, 2/3rds of the population of Golgafrincham was wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

This is directed at filthy filth-pots who use their phone in the toilet.

It also seems to imply that apps give you germs. Viruses I understand. But germs?

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