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Keyboards Are Disgusting
fredr1k writes "
A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat. More specific it contained 33000 bacteria per square centimeter, compared to 130 on a ordinary toilet seat. The tests also showed occurrence of up to 3100 fungi per square centimeter." Also note that unless you read Swedish, you still have plausible deniability when asked to windex yours.
That's funny, it doesn't taste like McDonalds
My work here is dung.
so who's been wiping their ass with my keyboard?!
Just wait until everyone puts spittle everywhere from talking to computers.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Quick'n'dirty translation:
###
Recent research shows your keyboard is more dirty than a toilet seat
(2006-01-18 09:20) Do you have some dirt between the keys on your keyboard? Spending a few bucks on a new keyboard might be a good idea. The latest issue of Pc för Alla shows that a keyboard can be a major source for contamination.
By Fredrik Agren
A keyboard holds about 33.000 bacteria per square centimeter - 265 times more than a toilet seat.
The computer magazine PC För Alla has examined what exactly is hiding on a keyboard. The task was assigned to Pegasus Lab, which discovered that every square centimeter contained 3.100 fungees.
Not surprisingly, Enter and Space Bar are the most filthy, as they are the keys we use more frequently.
There are many ways to keep your keyboard clean, but those afraid of catching the flu can follow a simple advice from Smittskyddinstitutets Kerstin Mannerquist:
- Wash your hands when you're done with the computer, she says to PC För Alla.
###
Anyway, remember the findings of Mythbusters?
In the episode Chinese Invasion Alarm episode, while busting the 5 second rule myth, they discovered that the toilet seat is one of the cleanest spots in your house.
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
Is what's in the keyboard.
So that's why I always feel better after I get a new computer!
The parts that touch the toilet seat are mostly shielded from bacteria by two layers of cloth.
Fingers, on the other hand, frequently stray to the places where bacteria flourish.
I've been carefully cultivating the bacteria on my keyboard for years! They've just started on communication. I'm hoping to have them up to written language in the next year. Then, we'll start on logic. With any luck, I should have my own civilization of microscopic coding assistants by 2011!
People often make this comparison: "XXX is dirtier than a toilet seat!"
Very bad comparison. Toilet seats are generally disinfected quite often, so should in fact be pretty clean. Keyboards are not disinfected.
Many things are dirtier than a toilet seat. Especially things that get fingers on them all day long. Engage brain and it all becomes quite obvious.
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
in the long term.
A recent study showed that kids who lived on the farm in Germany (or some other European country) grew up with stronger immune systems than those who lived in the cities.
That means the study suggests that they're more resistant to viruses and bacteria than the city folk.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
There was a Myth Busters episode testing the '5 second rule'. They found the same oddity, the toilet seat was the cleanest place (according to bacteria counts) in the whole shop.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
It seems to me that this just points out the way overblown hype against bacteria. Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people use keyboards every single day, and anecdotally, it doesn't seem like people are getting infections or having other issues (other than things like carpal) at a higher rate in the computer age due to the amount of bacteria found on keyboards (and believe me, it isn't because of increased personal hygene). Now if they further extrapolate and say that while most of the current bacteria is harmless, that keyboards represent excellent carriers in the future for more harmful bacteria, well, that's a more interesting story. But then again, doesn't that just say that you should keep your kb as grundgy as possible to keep those "good" bacteria in and the "bad" bacteria out?
I use my laptop on my toilet. What does this mean for me ?
Maybe bacteria laden keyboards are a blessing in disguise.
A few weeks ago I was at a party listening in on some cocktail talk between some doctors and health researchers. They were commenting about how some water borne bacteria was being (they think successfully ) experimented with to boost human immunity. This bacteria is cleaned out water by public sanitation systems.
A few weeks before that my local news had a piece about a girl with a peanut allergy who died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich earlier in the day.
The after story commentary mentioned how the number of allergies among teens is on the rise and how some ( only some ) experts were looking at the theory that middle class US life is too clean. Antibacterial this and antibacterial that do not allow young immune systems to get stimulated/strengthened.
I'm not an expert and these things are saw are not hard science.
Just introducing a thought, that as with everything else in life you can have too much of a good thing....even cleanliness.
There should be enough epidemiologic data that we don't have to rely on bogus measures like "number of germs" to try to estimate the risk of catching something from a keyboard. I suspect it is minimal.
I have a bottle of cleaning fluid that that purports to kill 99.something% of bacteria. Does that make me safer? Probably not; instead I'm helping the natural selection process to breed super-bugs that are resistant to antiseptic.
The specious "germ" argument is exactly the same as the one used to compute risk of intrusion by the number of reported exposures in a software system. What matters is infection/intrusion, not exposure. And it *can* be measured, so why bother to measure the bogus quantities?
After a while people tend to suffer from 'statistics burn-out' and become innumerate.
I think a taste test (and a tetanus shot) should be an option.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
not surprising. Fungal spores are nearly omni-present in the environment, and bacteria thrive on your skin at all times. Now, given that the keyboard is open to the surrounding air and has plenty of shielded space, yes, spores will accumulate there. But there's a difference between 3,100 fungal spores/sq. cm and having fungus actually growing there. Also, I have to question that number - 3,100 spores is a lot of spores.
Did the article bother listing precisely what bacteria and fungi they found? I wouldn't be surprised if they mostly found bacterial species from the genera of Bacillus and Staphylococcus with a few gram-negative rods thrown in for good measure. Oh, Propionibacterium acnes is probably pretty common as well. With the fungi it's more of a mixed bag, although most would probably fall into the general category of Ascomycetes.
As for catching the flu from your keyboard... Viruses such as Influenza don't survive on dry, non-porous surfaces for very long. Once the viral envelope has dried out, the virus is pretty much inactivated. You stand a better chance of catching the flu from talking to the person in the next cubicle or on the elevator.
Too bad you don't suffer from Three Stooges Syndrome. Then all the diseases would cancel out. Even a few undiscovered ones.
Can't spell slaughter without laughter!
As far as I'm concerned, the *world* is filthy, and millions of years of evolution have allowed us to live healthily ( mostly ) in it. It's part of being alive. And the more we're exposed, the stronger we are for it.
I'm not surprised that keyboards are filthy, but frankly, when I was a kid wandering around in creeks hunting crawfish, climbing trees, etc etc I never got sick, and I (almost) never get sick as an adult.
We *need* this exposure. I'm worried for children growing up in sterilized environments today.
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Lisa: "I've created Lutherans!"
SiO2
Seriously, I put mine in the dish washer every couple months and have a backup to use while I give it plenty of time to dry out.
It works, although the numbers and letters fade after about 3 times. But then again, I'm not a peeker anyway.
Haven't tried it with a mouse yet.
Anyone got any good tips for cleaning a keyboard?
Air compressors are very helpful, but ultimately you have to get into the nooks and crannies with a Q-tip or something and that is a time-consuming chore. Of course on laptop keyboards, it's way to easy to knock keys loose and depending on how the little plastic apparatus disconnects from the key cap, you can have all kinds of fun attaching the thing again.
I got one of those silicone roll-up keyboards a few years ago. I actually liked using it. Ergonomically, it worked well for me in terms of layout and feel of the keys. The downside is that it stopped working after a couple of months. I haven't tried another, but a keyboard you can simply wash with soap and water is a great thing.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Dish washer with the drying cycle turned off.
Put your keyboard in the dish washer. Make sure the drying cycle is turned off (the heat can damage your keyboard). Allow the keyboard to dry completely.
Workes for me.
Sure, keyboards are dirty.
:-)
Now, we don't want to go nuts and spray lysol all over it because you're just giving the more hardy bacteria hiding under the keycaps a chance to take over and make your incessant spraying worthless.
Instead, you should put it in the dishwasher. The heat will kill everything uniformly and it will come out clean and unstickified.
1) Disassemble your keyboard. This means unscrewing the back. Be careful when seperating the front and back halves to not have keys fly all over the place or plastic tabs to snap.
2) Remove any electronics. Usually this sits in the upper right by your Num Lock LEDs and has a cord that runs out of it towards the middle between the halves, or through the bottom half. On every keyboard I've disassembled this board is simply snapped into place and can be easily removed from the front half...
3) Most keyboards either have a rubber membrane with contact switches embedded, a plastic sheet with traces in it, or both, attached by a ribbon cable to the electronics. Definitely emove these.
Set aside the rubber membrane if you have one. This will melt in the dishwasher. Wash this by hand, maybe with a little bleach. Don't attempt to clean the plastic sheet... it's not worth it and it can be easily damaged, destroying your keyboard.
4) If the keys can be easily removed, do so. Place these in the dishwasher in the utencil basket if you have one. Otherwise place all the plastic parts like so many plates in your dishwasher.
5) Perform a full cycle with heated dry with a bit of dish soap. Do not wash your plates in this same load... you'll get food stuck in the crevices of the keyboard.
6) During the dry cycle, check on the keyboard every once in a while to make sure it isn't intolerant of the heat (this can vary from keyboard to keyboard). Some will deform after 5 minutes, others will hold up just fine.
7) Remove the keyboard at your discretion during the dry cycle. Wrap the components in some towels to draw the water out the nooks and crannies. Follow up with a hair dryer on the "cool" setting and/or with an air duster.
8) Reassemble.
9) Test, and enjoy.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Careful with the air compressor. Gentle puffs blow out dust, a blast can wedge dust, crumbs, boogers etc. deep into contacts and other places where they might do more damage than if just left alone. Just speaking from experience here :(
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
Tell you what, I'll lick my keyboard. Who wants to lick their toilet?
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." - Paul Beatty
Otherwise, I don't worry: These are _my_ germs, mostly things on my hands that I've already built up an immunity to or have no way of avoiding even if my kbd was sterile. I won't let others use my kbd, and I really try to avoid using others kbds. A much bigger problem is money and door handles. Lots of people touch them and I could get some new virus/bacterium.
BTW: toilet set tops are often very clean. But less so the undersides where women want men to put their fingers to raise and lower toilet seats! Default=up might be more sanitary.
I don't know about laptop keyboards, but for my desktop I use ~£3 keyboards from Dabs and replace them after a year or two.
I used to go through the whole thing of using wipes, cotton wool buds, alcohol-based cleaner, compressed air and tweezers. But you know, I spent more money on that than it cost to get a new keyboard, not to mention the amount of time I wasted, and even at the end it wouldn't be as clean as a new one.
Not the most environmentally friendly method, but at least I have a lot of spare keyboards.
In my last job, I put in about a year as an intern, then worked for an additional eight years at the same place. By my last year there, I was sysadmin, web guy, dba, and first line tech support dude. Usually, I'd wind up dispatching an intern to deal with tech support calls whenever possible.
One call had me responding to a guy whose keyboard was, bar none, the most disgusting I've ever seen. He had left for the day, and I picked up the keyboard because he'd left a USB device plugged into it. Something like a metric ton of dander, hair, and bread/cracker/cookie crumbs fell out of it.
A few weeks later, the building administrator (read: not my boss) sent me a note explaining to me why I needed (read: ordering me) to go to everyone's keyboard, blow out the keys with compressed air, wipe them down, check every key for motility, and wipe down the monitors. After a brief consultation with my boss, I replied that I trusted our employees to be able to handle those maintenance tasks themselves, although I'd be happy to help if there was a specific problem.
All this is by way of saying: some people just don't think about it, and some people just want it to be someone else's problem. But it's your mess, so clean it up, for chrissake.
> Two layers?!?
Consider the butt cheeks. In many cultures these are often covered by an inner layer of
1. underpants or
2. boxer shorts
and an outer layer of
1. trousers or jeans
2. skirt or dress
3. kaftan or burka
In addition, some people also routinely cover their butt cheeks and their upper thighs with an extra layer of
1. panty hose or2. tights or stockings
3. petticoat or slip
In colder climates, a fourth layer of cloth is also provided by
1. coat or
2. blanket
> *scratches head*
Have you considered washing your hands after you do that?Over-use of anyibacterials encourages the spread of resistance, and may even lead to conditions such as asthma.
of course, biting monkeys is not to everyone's taste - Konrad Lorenz
To peoples horror, the drinking fountain was way more bacterial than was the toilet water. But when you think about it, when was the last time they used toilet cleaner on the water fountain?
Likewise, your desk, your keyboard, your chair, probably even your monitor probably all have far worse bacteria counts than would a toilet seat in any regularly maintained toilet area. Put away the Lysol.
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This is why I bought the Microsoft Self-Sterilizing Keyboard, which contains depleted uranium. Owww. My fingers feel numb. WTF?
Why are people surprised by findings such as this one?
Obviously the toilet seat has less germs. Everyone associates "grossness" with germs in their head. Going to the bathroom is gross, and fecal matter is gross, therefore it must be full of germs and bacteria. Not the case, in fact, quite the opposite.
There are more bacteria on your face, more bacteria on your hands and more bacteria in your mouth than your buttocks in most cases.
Just put in the context of contact with the germ filled world you can see by common sense why this would be true:
Your rear end gets washed and then has very little exposure to germs. Your hands and face are out there all day making contact with all types of bacteria.
So I guess my point is that you can't say keyboards are dirty just because they are more bacteria filled than a toilet seat, because I don't even think a door knob holds up to that standard.
Now common sense would also side with keyboards being rather bacteria filled, but I hardly would consider that comparison to be an indicator.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
According to a recently shown documentary, lack of exposure to relatively benign bacteria and viruses, necessary to train and condition your immune system seems the source of many autoimmune diseases and allergies. Reminds me of an old Granny's adage "every child needs to eat their peck of dirt".
The show then went on to identify a bacteria sourced from clay taken from a lake in Northern Africa, the name is Mycobacterium vaccae, that can be used to retrain / reset your immune system and greatly help with many of these diseases. The list of diseases it helped with included leprosy, tuberculosis, allergies, asthma, and dozens more. Seems this bacteria shares common proteins with many nasty diseases and when the immune system is exposed to this bacteria it gets trained and conditioned, better able to handle the nasty stuff if exposed to it later.
The bacteria is being developed into a vaccine that is somewhere in the final stages of trails and may be available soon.
With the threat of Avian Flu looming near in our future, and no really effective way to treat this flu, I hope this Dirt Vaccine is made available sooner. My understanding of the flu is that most of the damage is done by our immune system when it goes overactive trying to fight the flu virus. M-vaccae looks like the reset button needed to counter this immune system response.
Hope on the horizon, maybe, but will big pharma be able to kill m-vaccae before it gets to us? After all it is a naturally occurring bacteria that they have no patent on.
For more on this Google "Dirt Vaccine" there are plenty of references.
Actually, what you state has some scientific backing.
:)
I heard it on the news last year that some German (?) scientist recommended eating nose mucous. As he stated, the nose is the only organ of the body that for the most part does not have a self-cleaning mechanism. The purpose of the mucous is believed to be (among other things) the entrapment of bacteria and other undesirables that would otherwise have entered the body.
By picking, we provide the nasal passages with a method of cleaning to provide new mucous and by -- ugh -- eating we introduce the bacteria into our systems that were otherwise trapped, thus allowing our immune systems to learn about it and, more importantly, learn to defeat it.
I actually discussed this a few days later with a friend of mine who's an Emergency Medical Technician and was a medic in the Army Reserves. After hearing the doctor's explanation, he agreed that it all makes sense. The immune system can't practice its self-defense if it doesn't have any targets to destroy.
Personally, I'll take my chances with the keyboard instead.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
There's always a way to clean your keyboard--the dishwasher.
;)
Take the electronics and screws out and set them aside. The keys, the base, and the rubber pad are dishwasher washable.
Use 1/4 to 1/3 of the amount of liquid/power for a full load, and put it on the shortest cycle you can manage and even then keep accelerating the cycle a bit. You want the keyboard clean but not baked.
Don't put anything ELSE in the dishwasher--you're shortening the cycle so you won't have the power to wash too much. The plastic may be dishwasher safe (seems to be) but you don't want to take any chances with the rubber.
If you have a white or ivory keyboard, note that it may yellow a bit, so don't do this on a keyboard you don't own unless the person fully trusts you.
Note: This doesn't work with IBM Model M keyboards (the clicky clicky clack kind) for obvious reasons, but you could probably take the keycovers off and wash those.
I'm not responsible if you damage your keyboard.
Air compressors are very helpful, but ultimately you have to get into the nooks and crannies with a Q-tip or something and that is a time-consuming chore.
Yes but air compressors and Q-tips do nothing against microorganisms like Acinetobacter Baumannii which I actually cultured on a keyboard found in an office at the hospital where I work. Guys... ask your local microbiologist what A.baumannii is... it's VERY BAD SHIT!
I don't know if I'd put a Model M keyboard in the dishwasher, but most of the 'quiet key' varieties should be fine if you shorten the cycle.
Cool. Now I can tell people I have pets.
I am not a crackpot.
seriously, when's the last time you got a cold or a stomache virus and you can absolutely tell where it came from? (the case of the kid sneezing in your face doesn't count)
But the point is valid: Our bodies are designed to operate in a virus/bacteria rich environment, and has the ability to fight of most of them.
Article has a lot of good points, but overgeneralizes using antimicrobial in many places that should simply be stated antibacterial. There's a big difference between the overuse of antimicrobial soaps and hand-sanitizers and the overuse of antibiotics, one of which will have minimal impact on resistance, and one which has major implications.
How else would you get back that last bit of donut jelly that dripped down onto the keyboard?
I work in a school systems. Toilets get cleaned regularly, but children with all sort of nasty germs tend to pick their noses, touch their various bits-and-pieces, and then tappity-tap-tap away at the keyboard.
Least to say, my laptop bag contains a portable container of antiseptic, and it's used regularly through the day. I've heard various stories of staph infections and others picked up from handling germy computer equipment. Employees of school districts and hospitals tend to get a decent amount of sick days... even without the keyboards and mice they tend to be high on the germ-scale.
I'm having a really hard time envisioning doing it the other way...
That's a bit of a stretch. Most of us won't find A. Baumannii on our keyboards, it's commonly isolated from the hospital environment. Hospitals are full of nasty stuff that isn't common in the outside world.
I'm not sure, but I think most common are S. Aureus (aka staph) and S. Pneumoniae (aka pneumonia). It's not that you won't find these outside, but the concentration is much higher or the pathogen is much nastier in intensive or acute care settings. In your house you're more likely to find Staph or E. Coli, but they're more benign than their hospital equivalent would be.
As far as badness, pathophys of your baby is roughly the same as other gram-negatives, and it's drug-resistant, like MRSA or some forms of TB. The big guns (new generation fluoroquinolones and similar antibiotics) still work, but it's getting to be a problem.
Doctors and nurses, please wash your hands!
BTW: toilet set tops are often very clean. But less so the undersides where women want men to put their fingers to raise and lower toilet seats! Default=up might be more sanitary.
You shouldn't publicize this, or the wimmenfolk will have us sitting down to pee.
Another point. Alcohol will help your keyboard dry if you get it wet. Since alcohol combines with water, if your keyboard gets water in it (water, NOT juice or another liquid!) you can (while it is UNPLUGGED) pour alcohol into it, swirl it sround to get it in all the little cracks and crevices, then pour the alcohol out. In a couple of minutes, you've got a clean, dry keyboard. Just be sure that ALL the alcohol has evaporated before plugging it in! Using a gentle blow-out with compressed air helps, here.
(Caution: offtopic ahead!) This works with gas tanks, too. If you've got water in your gas tank, pour a quart of isopropyl alcohol into it. It'll burn with the gas, and will combine with the water in the tank, which will burn out along with the alcohol.
"Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash." Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert A. Heinlein
I'm curious to know how much is on the mouse. The article mentions that there is more bacteria and/or fungii on the enter and space keys because they are used more often... I use my mouse a LOT more than my keyboard...
I worked in a casting facility a while ago where in the dirtiest (ferous dust, etc) locations we used those roll up keyboards. They work great in terms of keeping sediment from getting into the mechanisms, but unfortunately do not survive "typical" use for a normal keyboard for long. The contact points in the keys simply fail. Similar to these guys: (thinkgeek) http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/5a7f/ Scott