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Workstations 'Dirtier Than Toilets'
hettb writes "How often do you clean your keyboard and surrounding work area? A recent study (also discussed here) found that computer workstations harbour 400 times more health threatening bacteria than the average toilet seat. If you're anything like me, spending most of both professional and personal time in front of your computer, this is sobering news. "
Deal? ;)
Every 6 months I disassemble my machine. Everything that can be washed on the kitchen sink is washed there; everything else is dusted and/or cleaned with q-tips and alcohol. A bit overkill but the keyboard keys never get stuck.
Man, if workstations are that dirty, imagine how dirty PCs must be.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
I believe in constant exposure to bacteria
viruses and the like. Keeps your body tough
and your immune system strong...
all that antibacterial soap shit gonna
kill you one day...
not really kidding in case you are wondering
Exposure to bacteria is normal. We did not evolve with bleach and lavatories. Our bodies expect to encounter bacteria and to some expect we have to to keep out immune systems primed.
Why get paranoid about bacteria that naturally crawls over pretty much everything in our environment. Have you got ill off your keyboard? No, I didn't think so.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
For some reason I have that scene from gattaca in front of my eyes. Where the main character is vacuum cleaning his keyboard at the end of the training day. The interesting bit is that noone is really bothered or amused by this... It seems a bit overboard, but still within reasonable limits...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Is it just me or is all of this really quite moot. Between what we are exposed to outside naturally or what we subject ourselves to daily what is on our workstation is hardly going to really make a difference one way or another.
.. ...
Lets see some things that are probalw worse.
1) Any food/drink ordered from think geek
2) Coke
3) Paint fumes/dust and metal dust from people Modding their case.
4) Sitting in from of this damm irradating device for 12hrs/day
5)
6)
203331) some extra bactera on your desk
Think of it - cleaner environment - no more wasted trips, the possibilities...
I doubt many people catch that many diseases from toilets. I know it's common for people to become paranoid about using a public toilet for health reasons, but it's absurd. Just don't sit in anything wet or lick your hands afterwards and you'll be fine. That goes for using both a computer and a toilet.
I am a sys admin for a large company. I see people in the restroom all the time that don't wash their hands... Normally this wouldn't bother me, but then I think of how I'll be at that same users pc in 20 minutes. It makes me want to wear latex gloves like the doctor's office uses.
My workstation IS my toilet...
The study, funded by The Clorox Co.
Hmmm. Imagine that. A company that makes cleaning/germicidal products finds that a common workplace/home device is direly in need of disinfecting. I wonder if we'll be seeing Clorox Key-Wipes any time in the very very very near future?
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
At school I remember some old ADM keyboards that had slippery keys, with much blackness just aside from the contact points. Shudder!
Those were public terminals, though.
I've noticed that keyboard cleanliness really depends on the person. Not whether they dump coffee and cheetos on them, but whether their hands are particularly heavy sources of oil.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I was browsing Slashdot, fighting the urge to lick my desk, when I saw this article. Good thing too....
I am so happy to know that. I can't believe that for years I've been touching a dirty computer and then touching my clean penis. I could be transferring germs from my computer to my penis without even knowing it.
Who could have guessed what the conclusions would have been?
Let's see- after using our new "Desk Wipes" product for just two days you too can rid your desk of 99.9% of those nasty microbes.
Hmmm.....
I completely believe this. I have a coworker that has a 3 year-old cup of coffee that he keeps on his desk. It's mighty furry. He jokes that it will cure cancer one day. :)
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
I'll bet your mouth has even more germs than your keyboard.
But really, isn't this what we have immune systems for? If we spent all our time chasing every last germ, we'd end up like Howard Huges or Mr Burns.
This is obviously the basis for a marketing campaign by the Clorox company.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
How much time do you spend on or at the toilet on any given day? 5-10 minutes tops? Some people take a really long time in the rest room, but it still does not even begin to stack up against the amount of time we spend at our computers.
:)
Human beings are inherently dirty creatures. We can go through the whole day, doing almost no physical activity, and all the while, we're pumping out grease and perspiration. Meanwhile, we're going around touching door handles, money, and all sorts of other unsanitary surfaces. We then proceed to touch our keyboards and mice with these filthy hands. On top of that, many of us eat at our workstations, providing an ongoing food supply to whatever may be living on our input devices.
Now, think about the toilet. We spend very little time there. We never touch the seat. When we urinate, we're dispending a liquid that contains amonia and is actually steril. When we deficate, we're not very likely to get the contents on any surface except inside the bowl, where it is promply removed by about 5 liters per second of water.
Again, it comes as no surprise that computers are just outright dirty.
Why bother.
from now on, onsite pc support should put on disposable latex gloves before typing or touching the mouse. For a real gas, put on surgical garb and scrub up before opening the case.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That is an urban legend. Bzzt. Thanks for playing.
Whoah, I read "anti-bacterial hand satanizer(tm)" for a moment there. Scary stuff.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
needless to say, it's in their best interest to jack up bacteria paranoia levels whenever possible.
nowhere does it say that the bacteria levels on the desktop are unhealthy, just higher.
I'd never really seen anybody with warts until my first job. A company of under 30 people had at least 5 people with several warts on their hands. I had 12 warts on both hands with 2-3 years of starting at that place. I've always blamed the keyboards and mice for spreading the virus.
Most of the bacteria in the oil and sweat on your fingertips are perfectly benign; other people are covered in bacteria, but they are not septic. You can touch them. Even if they are all sweaty....
The bacteria in someone's other excretions - especially saliva, feces and the delightful sexual juices - are potentially infectious. Blood is more likely to contain viruses (since blood borne bacteria generally kill you stone dead). Unless the other person has a staph infection on their fingertips, the bacteria on their keyboard are not. Even the infectious stuff in snot, which often ends up on people's fingertips, is also (usually) viral and, in any case, generally killed by being dried out.
The fact is - most of the organisms that remain infectious after being dried out live in your scat.
Whatever the bacteria count on a desk, I'd recommend eating off of one over eating off a toilet, which is likely to harbor some small number of bacteria (or other parasites) that favor the human digestive tract.
This is not to say that staph infections are not a real problem; especially in hospitals, which (generally) do use disinfectant soap. I am saying that alarm over the bacteria on your desk is premature.
Researchers also separated office workers into two groups: one group used disinfectant wipes to clean their desks, phones and computers; the other group did not.
Reee-lly! What an interesting project. I wonder who funded it? I have some other observations about people who clean their desks with sanitizing wipes, but I'll leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals.
Dr. Gerba has also done work on how anti-bacterial kitchen supplies reduce of risk for disease (html courtesy of google.) Search the document for "Gerba".
Hell, take a look at his press coverage overall.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The same could be said about most system admins too.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Sure the bacteria isn't all coming from that big smelly hairy guy in the next cube who has the Princess Amidala screensaver?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
This is why I use a Keyboard Condom.
While many readers poo-poo the study because it was funded by Clorox, I wonder who else they expect to conduct such studies? Clorox makes cleaning products... it makes sense for them to find out what things need cleaning, no?
I wouldn't expect the average person to go around collecting samples from all of the surfaces in their house to grow in dishes and find problematic places.
The results don't surprise me at all. Anyone who's taken a high-school level biology course has probably done exactly that in class and found that commonly handled items have lots of bacteria. I believe door knobs and phones were the worst surfaces tested by my class. (which reminds me of a particular chapter of the hitchhikers guide...)
STOP.
While a UV-C (aka shortwave UV, 280-100nm, germicidal) lamp might be safe and effective for things that fit in an enclosed sterilizing chamber, the unit on the web site clearly isn't designed for that. In order to use it on a keyboard, you'd have to defeat the safety interlock and hold it over the keyboard. This does not sound like a good idea.
While your hands are designed to withstand some UV-C exposure before getting hellaciously sunburned, your eyeballs certainly aren't. Exposure to UV-C is a great way to get cataracts, corneal, or retinal burns.
If you were to use this unit as depicted (pointing an unshielded UV-C source at household items), the reflected UV-C (which you can't see, because it's outside the visible spectrum) from these items could eventually cause serious, permanent damage to your eyes.
Furthermore, the type of person to worry about "germs" on their combs, door handles, and phones to the extent of spending $180 for a UVC lamp for regular sterilizations thereof (I'm trying not to say "hypochondriac" :-) is precisely the kind of person likely to overuse such a device and overexpose their eyes to it.
Furthermore, most of the gunk-retaining surfaces in a keyboard are hidden from light. So if you're worried about germs from gunk in your keyboard, a UV light isn't gonna kill everything anyways. Disassemble the keyboard, wash it with good ol' soap and water, dry thoroughly, and reassemble.
And finally, if you still want to fuck with UVC, $130 for a hand-held 4W UVC source is pretty pricy compared to $40 for a comparably-sized EPROM eraser.
Awright, public service mode off. Now for the fun gadget on the page -- looks like a 4W battery-operated blacklight. (You can get a 15W 18" wall-mountable blacklight from Home Despot for the same price, though, which is way more fun, 'cuz it "lights up" the whole room.)
Another funny note about the site linked to by the parent post - the "personal inspection light" the tout is just a blacklight (UV-A) tube.
It works because many of the compounds in piss, puke, and shit, as well as some - but not all - molds, will fluoresce under UV-A. (You pr0n-hounds are safe, jizz doesn't glow under UVA)
If you shine a blacklight on someone's pants and notice big splotches of glowing stuff, it doesn't mean they've pissed themselves recently, it means they poured their laundry detergent onto the load of laundry before adding the water. Most laundry detergents make clothes "whiter" by adding a fluorescent dye. The clothes look drab under normal lighting, but if you go outside, the small amount of UVA in sunlight will make the clothes look "brighter".
Another fun trick to play with blacklights is to wave 'em around monitors and watch the phosphors glow. The old-school Sun 21" monochrome tubes really sing when hit with UVA.
Bottom line: UVA (blacklight) is fun to play with.
UVB and UVC, however, are not to be fscked with.
The above may have been an urban legend, however I do remember a legit Science News article about toilets and pathogenic materials, so I looked it up (link provided below). Bottom line: toilets may be disgusting, but they don't harbor pathogens. The dishrags and sponges you have in your kitchen are probably worse.
t m.
See http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arch/9_14_96/bob2.h
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Sheesh, it seems like everything is dirtier than toilets nowadays...
Your kitchen cutting board has 200 times more fecal matter than the average toilet seat. Thats why I've started preparing all my meals in the bathroom, using the toilet seat for a cutting board instead (hey, its 200 times cleaner, right?)
Well, this article has convinced me. I'm going to dip my telephone in the toilet once a week for a good cleaning. No more germs for me.
I Heart Sorting Networks
And they found germs? Oh, what a surprise. And I'll bet that if a computer industry association funded a study, they'd find that keyboards are perfectly healthy.
Unlike the Slashdot lead in, they did NOT say the bacteria were "health threatening." They did not say the "germs" were dangerous. They didn't say they had shown that they caused disease. They did not say they POTENTIALLY could cause disease. They did not say that the people using the antimicrobial wipes obtained any health benefits (fewer sicks days, etc).
All they said was, there were bacteria on your keyboard. Big deal. There are bacteria in cheese, in yogurt, in sauerkraut, in your own mouth right now, in your own gut right now, etc. There are not just bacteria but MITES in your eyelids.
Yes, it's true that colds in particular are spread more by hand contact than by droplets in the air. I'd bet that you are at far more risk when you shake hands then when you use someone else's keyboard.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
This seems more like an advertisment to sell disinfectant wipes. Assuming you wash your hands before you eat and aren't licking your keyboard you have little to worry about. There are bacteria everywhere, it is NORMAL for them to be EVERYWHERE, if anything trying to kill all the bacteria in your envionment might be detrimental.. If you start swabbing and culturing everything you will jsut end up OCD and living in a bubble. I mean hell, ever seen what grows when you swab money?
Dear God! Our poor little babies being babysat by the computers are catching bacterial infections from our filthy, filthy electronics!
Support the Child Online Cleanliness Act (COCA) to mandate child-safe bacterial filters on all library computers!
Stop the scourge of scurvy being brought home by your children using the same computer as some scuzzy homeless person!
Lord knows I always keep a box of handy-wipes by the computer for, um, cleanliness' sake.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
From the article: The average office desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat, according to a new University of Arizona study.
From the slashdot article: computer workstations harbour 400 times more health threatening bacteria
Note that the article makes no mention that the bacteria they found were a health threat. News flash! There are ten times as many bacterial cells in your intestines as human cells in your whole body. Not all bacteria are a health hazard, in fact many species are quite helpful in digestion and competing against disease causing bacteria for food and residence. Your entire skin is crawling with the little buggers. I've never heard of computers being a significant reservoir of any type of disease causing agent, but any microbiologists out there feel free to enlighten me.
If you have a strong immune system, these bacteria aren't going to affect you. (*)
If you have a weak immune system, you are very likely to get sick no matter what - quite possibly very sick - with or without using "anti-bacterial" products - unless you isolate yourself in a bubble, like people with Severe Combined ImmunoDeficiency (SCID, a.k.a. bubble boy syndrome) have to.
(*) Same applies to many viruses. Some people in experiments had live cold virus put up their nose! Some of the people did not get sick. Why? Because their immune system was strong.
Not letting your immune system even fight normal battles makes it both ineffective - leading to more infections, not less, and overreactive - leading to more allergies, asthma and even auto-immune diseases (such as Lupus and MS).
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
People are way too germophobic these days. Face it: Bacteria are everywhere. You can't avoid them. Just live with it.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I guess it won't be that long until these bacteria start making those utterly pointless "first post" posts to Slashdot. Hell, they're probably already more mentally developed that most of those lamers..
Surprise! Your mouth is even dirtier than your keyboard probably, and demonstratably dirtier than the mouth of a dog or cat.
BUT, there is a large difference between the microorganisms occupying your skin and computer and those that MIGHT be in your toilet (or on it).
i.e. Giardia, E. Coli, Clostridia, Salmonella, Shigella are all GI tract infectious and will make you really sick (as a bonus it only takes about five shigella to infect a person), but your skin houses things like Proprionobacterium acnes which won't make you sick but will make your acne worse.
Skin also houses some staphylococcus species but they usually won't cause trouble unless the get inside you in some way.
HTH,
Keith
P.S. I knew studying for medical boards would come in handy someday!