Slashdot Mirror
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? ;)
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.
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...
Yeah thats cool.... I'm a bachlor myself. :-)
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 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.
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!"
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.
Antibacterial != Antibiotic
Bacteria can get resistant to antibiotics put there'll always be something antibacterial that'll kill it..
Consider a soap that's 70% ethanol. Just applying that ethanol over bacteria will kill it. Doctors don't use pure ethanol for disinfecting instruments for nothing.
Yes, boicott overuse of antibiotics but definetly do not hesitate to use other means of antibacterial products. Overprotecting your living enviroment is bad because it leads to poor immune system but being rational with this never hurts..
Oh, try taking a small dose of arsenic every day and watch your health detoriate over time.. Everything doesn't make you stronger. That's how they got Napoleon, anyway.
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.
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!
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.
Overuse of anti-bacterial products is strongly linked to increased over-sensitivity and allergy to dust, pollen and animals etc.
Live in an anti-bacterial environment for a few years and you'll find that you can't spend much time outside anymore, due to the pollen, car exhausts and parfume/aftershave.
Since people started to move into cities, got higher standards of living, and a much cleaner living area, the number of cases of over-sensitivity to all these things (animals etc.) has rocketed sky high.
I'm not sure it has anything to do with the immune system, as pollen or animal hair or aftershave are not viruses or bacteria.
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
Reminds me of the wise George Carlin. Something to the effect of "I don't get sick, ya know why? Cause I used to swim in the Hudson river, covered in feces, and it builds up your immune system."
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!