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Lifting The Lid On Computer Filth
IainMH writes "There's a story over at BBC News about how work stations contain nearly 400 times as many microbes than lavatories. Gross. 'A desk is capable of supporting 10 million bacteria and the average office contains 20,961 germs per square inch, according to research. ... By contrast, the average toilet seat contains 49 germs per square inch, the survey showed.'"
I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Most of us sneeze on our hands, not our asses.
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
We are surrounded and inhabited by living beings. It is good for you ...
Just remember that its 'your' bacteria plus the bacteria off of everything you touched before using your workstation. Grab a cup of coffee? Open a door? Use the office toliet? Its all your hand, and thusly your workstation.
I guarantee you, if you cleaned your toilet as often as you clean your computer, it would (a) be utterly filthy, and (b) reek like nothing you've ever experienced before.
Not only is this old news (I remember hearing about how keyboards are more germy than toilets years and years ago), but its also not even that surprising if you stop to think about it, as the average toilet is disinfected quite regularly while the average workstation/keyboard is almost never even subjected to a basic dusting or wash, let alone a disinfectant.
Yeah, it's gross, but not at all surprising... I work in a cube farm where it's pretty much common knowledge that touching any of the equipment is going to be worse bacteria-wise than doing pushups on the mensroom floor (one of the stranger things I've seen in my cube farm days). And when you consider that equipment is shared between people on different shifts, and how strongly people are discouraged from calling in sick when they're sick, you start to get a very good picture of the kind of biological warfare taking place in the cracks between the keys. You can pick up more germs in this office by typing "WMD" than you would pick up from being attacked with one.
And don't even get me started on the transmission of scabies in shared upholstered swiveling office chairs...
[Z?]
Seriously. All manner of filth just accumulates just below the keys.
I'd like to know why no one has come up with a decent, washable keyboard. Most of the ones on the market are way too expensive are just too impratical. Are there some engineering problems with the design? Outside of the whole water-and-electricity-don't-mix thing I mean.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
I never have understood this obsession of counting the number of small living creatures around us. Now, count what behaviors/locations are more likely to make us actually sick, and you've got my interest, but it's pretty rare I see a study that actually says something along the lines of "cleaning with anti-bacterials will reduce the likelyhood of you getting sick" (in fact, I've only seen ones that show no difference).
The human body has evolved to be pretty capable of protecting against the things around us people now call "gross", and the rarer diseases that we come in contact with generally aren't stopped by staying "clean" anyhow.
The desk has people respirating over it and sneezing in the area. Everybody is going out, touching various things, tossing out bad stuff from the office fridge and then borrowing a stapler. It's likely got a significantly wider range of bacteria and viruses that can cause infection in a human.
--
Evan "And the worst thing out there are buffets, especially the salad bars"
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
My solution is to do nothing.
Modern society's obsession with disinfecting everything is weakening our immune systems. Your body is meant to be exposed to these kind organisms and such exposure strengthens your resistance.
Not only that, but we're not dead yet, despite the Clorox/Lysol warnings. Maybe there's germs, but so what? In most people it's helpful for building a strong immune system.
Toilet seats are flat and non-porous. They're easy to clean and there's nowhere for bits of food to go. The reputation for toilet seats being "dirty" is rather unfounded unless someone shits or pisses all over them. And while urine is disgusting and I don't want to sit in it, it's actually almost always sterile.
Bacteria usually need food to multiply on. People don't tend to eat in bathrooms, but they do eat at a desk. Keyboards are filled with places for dust, food, moisture, etc to collect. Great places for bacteria to multiply. Keyboards are also very hard to clean, and almost impossible to clean well because of all the spaces inside them.
What upsets me most though is the comparison to toilet seats that winds up in every "thing X has this many germs/inch article". In understanding anything context and perspective is king. The implications is that if something is dirtier than a toilet seat, it just MUST be dirty as hell. It's a rare article that points out that maybe the premise (toilet seats are really dirty) is at fault. I'd be more interested in comparisons to things that ARE dirty, like a cutting board after having cut raw meat on it. Unfortunately articles like these always end up as the "interesting little tidbit" articles in newspapers where they have to grab your attention and don't have time for things like giving out real information.
AccountKiller
As long as you power it down AFAP (yank from wall if necessary) water is not that damamging to electronics. If not cleaned up it can delaminate PCBs and destroy caps, but if left off and dried well it'll work fine. Other things, esp sticky thinks (soda, get your minds outa the gutter...) can be cleaned up by rinsing with water and then drying. Not a fix 100% of the time, but usually works out pretty well.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
My thoughts exactly! I mean, look what happened to those poor people on Golgafrincham!
/.ers can probably related, just think of how many bacteria, mold and fungi you pick up during sex!
This is not to say that it's good to wallow in filth all day, but chances are the bugs on your desk and keyboard are 99.9% completely harmless, with the other 0.1% being a very mild hazard that you're probably more likely to get from something else (another posted mentioned warts as an example). Your best defense is to wash your hands before eating. Hopefully that's common sense.
Every time you breathe in you swallow about 60,000 bacteria. According to the linked article that's like licking your spacebar clean. Can you imagine how many germs you pick up drinking out of a bottle or cup that's been sitting out for even a few minutes? What about eating the rest of that sandwich you got yesterday? And only a few
=Smidge=
Modern society's obsession with disinfecting everything is weakening our immune systems.
At the same time, places like computer work stations develop a remarkable amount of organic trash and all sorts of nasty germs. While there is a problem living in a steral enviroment, there is a greater problem living in a sespool. Your workstation should be cleaned and vacumed.
Problem is, in this throw away soceity of ours, the typical business enviroment isn't hip on paying someone to clean keyboards / mice / PC cases. I clean my keyboard from time to time. that is pull all 104+ keys, and throw all the plastic in the dishwaser. This would be impractical for a business to do, far more practical to just buy another damn keyboard.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Simple as that, as long as your don't pick your asshole and THEN use the keyboard, you should be fine. ...and people wonder why I carry a bottle of Purell while on-site to fix Joe Sixpacks computer.
Life is not for the lazy.
I try not to buy anti-bacterial anything. Those sponges do kill bacteria, specifically the weak bacteria. The ones left over are nice and hardy and in shape to kick my immune system's butt. Having a normal ammount of non-stengthened bacteria around keeps your immune system healthy and prepared.
It's hard to find non-anti-bacterial hand soap. The main ingredient in all of them is Triclosan. Triclosan only kills bacteria after 1 to 3 minutes of constant contact. During normal hand washing, it's totally useless. The alcohol gel sanitizers do actually work but it feels like I'm rubbing snot on my hands.
-B
Well, to be honest, it is informative, though a little obvious I must concede. But more seriously, I'm sure 50% of the people out there pick their noses/ears and then their keyboard. I would be surprised if none would pick their ass before typing something.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
... Dr. Charles Gerba and the BBC science news staff eating their lunches off of toilet seats.
Number of germs and bacteria is not nearly as relevant as which ones. Of course you're going to get a bunch of rhinovirus on desks and keyboards. People breathe. But on toilet seats you're going to get E. coli. In the right place, inside your intestines, they're just dandy. Eat some, and you're in for a world of hurt.
Of course the germs were there. They've always been there. A reasonably healthy person carries just as many and spreads them around, and is not suddenly susceptible to something just because someone counted them.
The article was ridiculous, sensationalistic, half-science, and I blame BBC far more for that than Dr. Gerba. They've been leaning this way for years now. They making more factual errors, and not correcting them, but worse, they're writing it more like tabloids.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I borrowed the big version from a local dealer. This box had been doing duty in a smoky bar, and I had to clean it first. At the intake end, the goop was just what you'd expect. After the UV element, it was just black odorless carbon dust.
Ozone is a bit iffy-it eats plastics. We got into all this through a moldy basement. We did ozone, and all kinds of things suffered early failures because of it. Rubber bans are particularly vulnerable.
Of course, ozone eats people too, which is why it can only be used after hours.
Now, this is for cleaning the cirulating air, not surfaces.