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Dyson Airblades 'Spread Germs 1,300 Times More Than Paper Towels' (telegraph.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The Journal of Applied Microbiology published a report claiming Dyson Airblade hand-driers spread 60 times more germs than standard air dryers, and 1,300 times more than standard paper towels. The researchers from University of Westminster conducted their research by dipping their hands in water containing a harmless virus. Then, they dried their hands with either a Dyson Airblade, a standard hot-air dryer, or a paper towel. Their research shows the Dyson drier's 430mph blasts of air are capable of spreading viruses up to 3 meters across a bathroom. Typical driers spread viruses up to 75cm (about 2.5ft), and the hand towels 25cm (less than 1ft).
Yes, but it's a Dyson which means it cost twice what any other solution cost, so it's go to be good, right?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It actually gets my hands dry, unlike traditional air dryers ("press button, wipe hands on pants").
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
But... But... It's the "world's most hygienic hand dryer!" It says it right on the thing!
Never mind all the other factors. I have small hands and they still touch the sides. I am sure the prototypes had more clearance, but when it came to manufacture them...
...Sheldon was right?!
But I tend to wash my hands instead of dunking them in vats of bacteria before drying them, whichever method of drying I use.
When I give rave reviews about the local grocery store, the number one thing I talk about is the awesome airblade hand dryers.
(Luckily they are usually used by people that have just washed their hands with soap and water. People aren't using them to dry off their hands dripping with toilet water)
Typically when the dryer starts up, I can feel a fine spray of water hit me in the face. I avoid these dryers now, even if it means using my pant legs to dry my hands.
At least the old fashioned blow dryers that take forever to dry your hands don't direct a spray of water into your face.
All germs are off your hands and into the environment. There is no free lunch, my friend.
Evidently, that's not a joke any longer. As James Dyson says,
"Like everyone we get frustrated by products that don’t work properly. As design engineers we do something about it."
Shouldn't the premise for testing hand dryers be that the hands are washed with soap and are "clean" but wet? If we taint the water itself and measure how far that spreads, is that really a realistic test of how hygienic the dryer is?
That is why I go to stall and pre open door so I can grab some toilet paper to dry my hands.
Why would it ever be a joke? It doesn't make sense
Tim, the Toolman's" theory of "More Power" seems to have failed in this case.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
IIRC, The Mythbusters a couple years ago tested the efficacy of air hand dryers versus paper towels, and found that paper towels were more effective and more hygienic.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
You mean those jet-powered hand dryers that make so much noise that they give you tinnitus?
I hate those!
My anecdotal evidence has shown that men don't wash their hands often after doing their thing. That said, perhaps Dyson's numbers are much better than NOT washing your hands and using either paper or air.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
pretty sure people didn't switch to be "more efficient", wasn't the idea to save paper ?
I don't know about the rest of you, but that is NOT the protocol I follow to wash my hands.
I use something called "soap", not a diluted virus solution.
What a stupid study with an obvious result. Funded by the paper towel industry maybe?
I have never successfully used an airblade without my hands grazing one of the sides. I'm scraping off some skin cells and acquiring some from the previous guy.
Own one for two seconds and I defy you not to realise this.
See that damp stain on the wall underneath? And the puddle on the floor? Yeah, you washed your hands about five times, and it looks like you've been having water fights in front of the thing.
And then there was me who was always told that, actually, washing your hands (the process of wetting them) does little anyway. It's the drying / wiping that actually scrapes the crap off. Otherwise you literally just have a slightly damper environment for the bacteria on your hands anyway.
There's a reason that surgeons "scrub" up. It has little to do with the water itself, which just acts as a lubricant to assist the soap (which sticks to dirt and water) in sticking to the dirt and then providing a way to know where you've washed and to remove those parts that might have captured the dirt. It's the wiping / scrubbing / vigorous rub-down that actually removes that crap from you (and onto the floor / towel / soap / sink, obviously).
Like the Romans - who bathed in oil and then scraped it off, knowing the OIL took the dirt with it, not that smelling like a pizza for the rest of the day actually did anything in itself.
The reason we have hand-driers is because such scrubbing in public is considered... "wrong" somehow. You can't share a towel without transfer of bacteria, and people think individual paper towel is somehow killing the planet. Like blowing your nose - don't put it in a handkerchief and carry it around with you. Wipe it off on a tissue and throw the fucking thing away.
But, to be honest, it barely matters. Bacteria don't last long in those kinds of environments so long as they're cleaned occasionally, you can't really avoid spreading them anyway (it's not a question of some precisely contained particles - watch one of the slow-mo videos of a sneeze, it doesn't matter what you do it's like someone sneezing a handful of flour - it goes fecking everywhere, but, yes, put your hand up because it does stop quite a lot of your snot landing on someone else), and gadgets like this are quick and convenient which means more people might bother to wash their hands just to try it out.
But if you ever used one of these, I defy you to not have seen the crap and water on the floor underneath and around it that gets blasted off everyone else's hands.
Like all things Dyson (and Apple), half-decent idea, pretty aesthetics, fucking terrible design, but add a premium and be different and people buy it.
Most people are disgusting and can't even perform a simple task such as washing their hands properly.
They literally need guides to help these people, which they promptly ignore because they see 4+ frames and go "yeah no, I've got things to do", then end up ill because 90% of the rest of the toilet users agreed with that sentiment.
So, in conclusion: Fuck everyone. Go full biohazard suit to the bathroom. Take no chances.
One of the authors of the study works for Kimberly Clark, omnipresent maker of paper towels. How convenient.
I hope this is sarcasm, toilet flush spreads germs too; you'd be wiping your hands with shit germs.
Who dips their hands in virus water? This is a pointless expirement. Who cares if it splashed clean water after you wash with soap? Sheesh.
are pushing them so hard. They recently forced them down our throats here in Seattle's airport. They'll do anything to increase profits for the medical cartel.
pretty sure people didn't switch to be "more efficient", wasn't the idea to save paper ?
Yes, it was to save paper.
That stuff doesn't grow on trees...
For the next study, I recommend they compare the decibels of the Dyson Airblade dryer, as experienced by the user, to the decibels of a jet engine on the tarmac, as experienced by a baggage handler wearing ear plugs.
I'm betting the dryer would win.
Because what they studied where the difference between the different drying solutions.
They are the cheapest solution that shuts people up. (They cost energy to operate, but that's still way cheaper than having to periodically replace paper towels, or deal with the frequent mechanical faults of some other solutions.)
From a hygienic (and economic) perspective it would in fact be better if the Airblade wasn't there at all, but then people start complaining that they have to dry their hands on their trousers.
What they did:
- put gloves on,
- soaked those gloves in virus rich fluid,
- they didn't wash their hands,
- they put hands with the gloves on (soaking wet) into Dyson,
- they turned that thing on and measured how far germs could travel.
This is not a real world test. They should have washed their 'hands' (gloves) and then start up Dyson and measure germs spread. I know that a lot of people don't wash their hands after visiting toilet (yuck) but they're also not going to put their hands into dryer.
And I'm not saying that if the test was done correctly results would be any different.
Experimental setup:
Real world equivalent of the experimental setup:
Actual bathroom operation:
Does anyone spot the little problem with what their experiment tests and what conclusions the draw?
I'm pretty sure they say it's "to save paper" while really meaning "we're sick of emptying the trash can all the time" or possibly "we think it's less expensive because the electric budget goes somewhere else".
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Three Politicians finished using a unisex bathroom.
Hillary Clinton walks to the paper towel dispenser and uses two towels to dry her hands. “It takes me a little longer,” she says.
Bernie Sanders walk to the paper towel dispenser too, and remarks, “I’m not controlled by special interest groups, I only use one by my own decision,” and proceeds to dry his hands with a single towel.
Donald Trump briskly walks to the Dyson. The 430-MPH wind sprays water on the other two politicians. He remarks, “I’m Donald Trump, and I don’t pee on my hands!”
The Mythbusters already confirmed that air powered had drying spread germs more than paper.
Awesome, whip me up some germs after I crap my pants.
Have you tried using one of them as a urinal while they were blowing?
Worst urinal EVER!!
How to use one paper towel.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Uh, no, the warmth from a standard air dryer does not appreciably speed up the proliferation of remaining germs on your hands. The heat does not persist long enough to make a difference in bacterial growth. Bacteria do not multiply _that_ fast.
The purpose of a Dyson is to be _quick_ and thorough at drying your hands, which is something that standard air dryers are pitiably bad at.
I've been saying this for years. I refuse to use any sort of "germ blowing" device in the bathroom. If there are no paper towels... i simply just dry my hands on my pants or move on with slightly moist hands. Only takes a couple of minutes for them to dry anyway...
You made the point better than I could have. I hate it when people test the wrong thing.
Sorry, unless you are blasting your hands with water as fast as this air dryer how do you even suppose to pretend that your hands are being cleaned to such a degree that the air dryer will not pull off more bacteria/dirt/other microbes than hand-washing.. never mind that most people dont wash their hands very well to begin with or the possibility that the soap has run out from the dispenser.
Then I will challenge you on how you think water and soap will kill a virus or even kill 100% of microbes that are susceptible to soap destroying their cellular membrane.
The bottom line is that Dyson invented a good hand dryer which is also much more effective at sharing disease with your follow bathroom compatriots. Sneeze into the thing while its on and share your cold with everyone around you.
-gov
IIRC, The Mythbusters a couple years ago tested the efficacy of air hand dryers versus paper towels, and found that paper towels were more effective and more hygienic.
Sad too, they put the expensive, blow germs all over the place, hand dryers in every rest stop along every tollway in the state of New York. Makes me want to avoid tollroads even more now.
Well, yes, paper towels might be more effective and more hygenic, but without Dyson Airblades or those obnoxious XLerator blow-dryers, how are we expected to damage our hearing in the restroom? If we don't have a 95-decibel mini-jet-engine firing up every few seconds in a small room covered in hard, echoing surfaces, we'll pretty much have to stick actual spikes in our ears to get the same result.
is that after you have dried your hands (or not) you have to pull on the contaminated handle to open the exit door. WHY DON'T THESE DOORS OPEN OUTWARDS THEN YOU COULD PUSH IT WITH SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOUR HANDS.
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
Sure blowers may blast bacteria around and paper towels may already have bacteria on them. But how dangerous is this ? Billions of years of evolution has given us an immune system that deals with what is found in the environment., if now we would have died out centuries ago. I do agree that we are living in more densely populated communities and so germ control is more important than it was in times past; but I suspect that most of that happens through the guys who don't wash their hands after going to the toilet (and touch things that we later do - think: door handles) or those who cough and sneeze near others.
Paper towels beat air blowers and air blades in cleanliness?
Sometimes the old ways are better than the new ways.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
"we're sick of emptying the trash can all the time"
How about these other steps;
1. Purchasing paper towels.
2. Storing paper towels.
3. Refilling dispensers.
4. Storing waste till it can be picked up.
5. Filling solid waste dumps with used paper towels.
Emptying cans is only one step in the process. Every step in that process cost time and/or money.
I thought the point of the dryer was to dry the rinse water off of your hands after you thoroughly wash them, eliminating most of the pathogens.
That said, the problem here isn't the dryer. It's the idoits who don't know how to wash their hands. Perhaps in a hospital, we could make smart sinks that detect when you haven't washed your hands thoroughly enough and then curse at you or something... maybe the "red alert" sound. If it's obnoxious enough to get the attention of others in the room, then people will not ignore it so easily.
Or maybe they need to eliminate the sink, and just put the hand washing function into the dryer. I'm sure Dyson could power-wash the skin off of your hands. Wait, then blood-borne pathogens would get everywhere. Unless you cauterize the flesh after you take off the skin.
Maybe we should eliminate the sink and the dryer, and the bidet for those of you that like that sort of thing, and the toilet paper, and have an all-in-one commode that you sit on your hands on that washes, sanitizes, and drys your ass and your hands after you defecate. Ah, it'd feel sooo clean.
Or maybe we should just shit, wipe, flush, wash and dry like responsible people with what we've got.
So, your saying they DIDN'T wash their hands? If they washed their hands, how many germs would they spread then?
And the research concluded that increased air pressure blows water off the hands quicker?
I think the focus of this is skewed for more effect. They intentionally placed "infectious" material on the hands so they could claim that this think spreads germs. All it does is blow the water off the hands instantaneously. You need to actually wash your hands first.
Do they need another disclaimer on a sticker on it saying "Wash hands before drying" for the stupid people?.
So Dyson says: "Independent research shows that before they even reach the washroom, paper towels can contain large communities of culturable bacteria."
Yes, but those bacteria aren't likely to cause disease in humans. As I understand it, infectious viruses don't survive for long periods of time on dry surfaces, like paper towels. If one person having a cold or the flu uses a Dyson dryer, he aerosolizes the virus into tiny droplets hanging about in the air and splashing about on the doorknob. That's where the infection of the next visitor happens.
Actually, the proper term is 'atomized feces.' Not that it's reduced to atoms, but the fecal matter drifts around in the air.
So that's what the funny looking urinal is. I always wondered why it was over by the sinks............and why it blew my pee everywhere.
Last time I was in the toilets and used one of these things my piss went everywhere. Def not hygienic.
...As design engineers we do something about it."
Poor James. After all this time he still doesn't understand why actual engineers look on designers with amused contempt.
I know this is nuts, but why not test people who actually washed their hands with warm water and soap?
Who dips their hands in a virus after washing their hands?
This report is full of hot air (sorry... ;-}
I think we would become a better nation if we learn not to pee on the hands ... No need for air dryers or paper.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This must be that study where they didn't wash their hands before drying them.
Dyson has a rebuttal; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKxT1k1cmXc
Other studies also published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology came to the conclusion that paper towels and the airblade were equally effective at spreading germs - assuming that there really are paper towels, and a proper place to dispose of them.
Try using a car or truck or better yet a rocket to transmit those virii further than the Dyson.
I thought the design of the machine was to dry the hands, not see how far it could move a virus.
As a doctor I could suggest washing your hands with soap and water instead of virus and water. The former is the approved method whereas the latter is a little to new and usually frowned upon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Everywhere I have used an Airblade I have first washed my hands with soap and warm water. I'll keep this research in mind if I ever decide to rinse of in toilet water instead.
You may be shocked to learn that wet wood pulp is compostable. No need to put it into "solid waste dumps."
It's awfully difficult to blow your nose with the air driers
Oh wait..
You are a racist.
Ah, the road to hell...
1300, isn't that the number you multiply another product price to in order to get the price of a Dyson product?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
To be fair, most of the water in India is about as likely to get you sick as the unwashed hand that precedes it. Give some credit to a culture of people that recognize this, and try to use just one hand so that the other one is still clean for eating, etc. Saves an enormous amount of water, too.
The wheel it turns, around and around, with an ancient rumbling sound.
You forgot, "We can get rid of the guy who goes round replacing the towels and emptying the bins".
I first encountered these idiot things in my first overseas trip to London and Paris back in 2010 at many shopping centres and airports.
The stupid goddamn things have a very small slit to put your hands in, where the air is coming rapidly on to your hands in a very tight line / wave of air.
The problem is in the design that you put your hands inside this small gap and it's really bloody easy for your palms or back of your hand or your shirt to easily touch the top or bottom of the opening.
https://www.thememo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/dyson-airblade.jpg
It's simply too small a space to put your hands. Sure if you're careful you're fine but it reminded me of playing the old electronic board game 'operation' trying to not touch the sides.
I realise Mythbusters seemed to confirm that an air dryer IS worse than paper towel for germs, but I still prefer a combination of both (towel then dryer) but I'd take a regular hand dryer any day over the Dyson, stupid bloody thing.
After reading this story, I disagree with the process and direction of the experiment. The use of any hand dryer is to dry your hands AFTER you wash your hands with SOAP and WATER. NOT after you dip your hands in known bacteria. The experiment is obvious, and misleading. I don't see how hand dryer manufactures, including Dyson have any relation to this. To put it more bluntly, I wipe my nose after a major sneeze, and hold my hands outside of a car window at 140mph. The result would be the same as this experiment. For the record, I'm an IT guru with 20 years experience, with physics, engineering, electrical, and electronic experience.
. . . . . when the shit hits the fan.
(and I can't believe nobody else said it first)
They are excellent for drying paintbrushes. Seriously, put the brush in sideways, the air disturbs the brush and dries it almost instantly. Very handy.
Oh, and I suppose they're ok for drying hands too.
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
n/t
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I promptly got sprayed in the face. I'm sure some of the spray was from drips by prior users.
I also noticed you have to put you hands in at a particular angle. At 5'7" the installed height of the device at that store is a bit high for me. I would guess if you are 5'4" or less, reaching up and angling the hands down into it is a big problem, and if you are over 5'10" or so you need to bend over and/or your knees.
Off topic, or is it.
This was at a Whole Foods Market in Pasadena, CA, by the way. Another Mega-dodo company. Why do companies think that the rest of the store can look and feel 'upscale,' but it is okay if the bathroom is a mess. Usually not gross, but, still. And in spite of the sign "No Employees; Use Employee Bathroom" on the door, there are usually an employee or three hanging around.
Why do employees who are grimacing in fake smiles on the 'store floor' feel like they can scowl at you with overt hostility in the bathroom? I notice when Whole Foods first came to East Pasadena the workers and customers all seemed to share the same values: healthy food and lifestyle, courtesy, Birkenstocks, neo-hippy kinda. The newer store, "Whole Money" version seems to have hired paroles who have thinly veiled contempt for their customers. Oh, it feels good to rant!
PS. If they really do hire paroles, and I would not be surprised if they do, at the least they seem to hire people that fit poorly. Kudos for hiring minorities and other marginal people, wherever they get them from. Although I suspect that they use that as chips in the political arena.
Our body sports a very good immune system, you know. If that was a problem we'd all be dead already.
Hi guys, I'm not versed on the relative merit of these studies, but it appears the study linked is only saying that germs were spread further.
Here's a link to an earlier study with a different methodology published by the same journal which found that use of the airblade resulted in a significantly reduced transfer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017747/
Which is the better methodology / metric to consider with the spread of disease? Will virii tend to be hardier and more prone to spread than bacteria?
Perhaps one (airblade) might be better in a food handling environment and others in general bathroom usage?
You're supposed to wash your hands before you dry them. If you wash them properly there are no germs to spread.
Germs get spread 60 time more by a Dyson than a normal hand-dryer.
In order to achieve that figure, we have to take the radius of dispersal and map it to the volume of a sphere. I'm afraid I've not seen a Dyson dryer mounted at least 3 meters above the floor, at least 3 meters from any wall, and at least 3 meters from the ceiling. I'm not entirely sure how I'd be able to use such a device -- having to climb a ladder after going for a pee would be pretty unhygienic.
But even in such a scenario, the figures are buggered, by the simple law of "what goes up must come down", as all of the germs are going to end up on the floor, no suspended in air uniformly across the volume. The 3m dispersal radius assumes a typically installation with the floor around 70cm below the nozzles, so if we raise the device, basic Newtonian mechanics is going to mean the dispersal radius will increase.
You could potentially argue the case for using 2D area as a legitimate comparison (1.76 square meters for hot air vs 28.3 sq m for airblade = approx. 16 times) by virtue of the floor describing a 2D plane, but I'm not sure that the linear comparison isn't the most accurate here -- "Dyson Airblade spreads germs 4 times further than standard hot air dryers.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
All this talk of bacteria and germs makes me realise what a bunch of clueless wusses most people are. You do realise that every day you are literally surrounded by germs, bacteria, bugs etc. etc.
It's the job of your immune system to deal with them and, to get itself "trained up", it *needs* to be exposed to nasties. If not then the first time a decently powerful invader gets into your system you'll be f**** as your immune system, not being used to working properly, won't have the "intestinal fortitude" to deal with it.
Now obviously you'd be an idiot to go round drinking cups of ebola etc. but worrying about a few germs or bacteria on door handles is asinine.
Let your kids play in the dirt and eat worms. Let them get all those minor childhood illnesses (mumps, measles, chicken pox etc.) Then when they grow up they'll have TOUGH, WORKING immune systems. I grew up in the 60s and when we were kids we used to get sent round to other kids houses who had chicken pox etc. specifically so we'd all get it at once. Now I'm an old git I can't actually recall the last time I got any sort of infection, stomach bug, etc. etc. because I played in the dirt, I eat food with mould on it, and my immune system is like a champion prize fighter.
Germs and bacteria don't stand a snowflakes chance in hell when they come up against my battle hardened, veteran T cells because they're used to dealing with "stuff".
On the contrary there are people who I work with who are obsessive about hygiene, won;t even pick and apple off the floor if they drop it (god forbid touch it if's got a slight brown bruise etc.) and they are always ill with some minor ailment or other.
Get tough. Eat dirt. Wallow in filth - but do wash before sitting down at the dinner table/taking a significant other out on a date etc.
Why yes I am a Subgenius !!!
Who the hell washes their hands with viruses instead of soap? If you just washed your hands, what are you going to spread? If the water is so bacteria-laden that you're going to spread them even after using soap, you and everyone else in the room have a lot more to worry about.
So, there's something wrong with EVERYTHING.
What if they added a small drain to the bottom for the water that pools down there, and integrate a UV light to kill the bacteria? I'm not sure if any of it is UV resistant.
Has anyone actually been sick lately? The most sick I've ever been was catching the odd cold in the winter but these days I take the flu shot, so, not even that. :)
Most bacteria and viruses are harmless, they're everywhere, you inhale and ingest them routinely.
That's why you have a strong acid in your stomach and antibacterial mucus lining your respiratory tract?
Gotta love that immune system!
The germs are nothing compared to the hearing loss due to putting your ear next to a get engine.
Joe cleans himself messily. "That's okay, I'll just wah my hands." He touches the faucet with his feces covered hands, washes them clean, then touches the feces covered faucet again to turn it off. Then he dries his hands with a dryer spreading feces to the button, and opens the door, spreading feces to the door handle and beyond. Everyone who washes their hands after him gets his feces.
USE PAPER TOWELS
Wash your hands, leave the water running, then use a paper towel to dry them. Then use the paper towel to turn off the water and open the door. There are people who don't wash their hands and that door handle is dirty!
The whole point of washing ones hands is to kill and remove the germs through the rigorous use of hot water and soap, the drying is just for comfort. The only thing that matters is which dries hands better and is more environmentally friendly from a resource perspective.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Dang, and I just got done installing a germ basin in my bathroom for me to dip my hands in after washing them.
If you washed your hands properly, there would be no virus left to spread this way.
Dog is my co-pilot.
The shit is really going to hit the fan ... Oh wait!
It's not a serious issue unless people aren't washing their hands first: oh wait, that's the point
Also, there's already a shit-load of bacteria and viruses in the environment already; that e-coli gets pretty much everywhere.
Stupid click-bait articles & idiot whiners.
On the other hand, it's probably a good idea to wash your hands *beforehand*, as some of the skin on that particular part of your body is rather thin and you don't want to introduce nasties if possible.
But regardless of what your hands touch, combining thin skin and an area prone to being warm and possibly sweaty is still a good incubator for unpleasant things such as the bacteria/fungi behind jock itch etc.
Also, always rinse hands well after preparing habanero or other hot peppers or other extremely hot foods or you'll be doing a little pain-dance for quite awhile afterwards
You forgot, "We can get rid of the guy who goes round replacing the towels and emptying the bins".
God, I hope they're not thinking that.
In my neck of the woods, the person who replaces the towels and empties the bins is also the person who's responsible for cleaning the washroom.
..... wash their hands properly before using the drier it shouldn't be that much of an issue. But not everyone does unfortunately.
There is no perfect solution to hand drying in restrooms. Many people have damaged their hearing so badly from stereo ear buds, loud traffic and concerts blasting music at dangerous levels that most people don't even realize the hand blower dyers are so noisy that they damage your hearing.
My hearing range used to be so much broader, and more sensitive to faint noises, that I was literally one in a hundred thousand... my hearing is still far better than most people... I still have to cover my ears when fire trucks, police cars or louder motorcycles pass just because the noise is, so intense it hurts my ears. I notice most people do not cover their ears when I do, which means their hearing has already been damaged.
Many stores have begun installing hand blowers in their rest rooms, and I end up having to cover my ears even when all the way across a large restroom... yet, there are others that use the blowers without a second thought. Their hearing is already so damaged they do not realize the dryers are further damaging their hearing, and the store owners do not realize the issue.
Just because a blower (or loud music, or sirens) does not sound loud to you does not mean it is not damaging your hearing, if your hearing is already damaged beyond a certain point. You hearing is already so damaged that you cannot rely on "pain level" to tell if it is TOO loud.
I have to put in earplugs every time I see one of this awful things. Not to use it mind you; just to be in the room with it while other morons blast away their hearing. The are really a danger to the future of humanity. Good hearing is just as important to me as good sight. Too many things in this world are conspiring to take it away. Most people now have very poor hearing and don't realize it.
Horrible...
I'm a typical 6'2" 200lb beard-wielding mechanic. My hands are big and clunky. Every time I use one of the fucking air blade things, my hands touch the paneling. Every time. I think about how many times its been used and how many times it's been cleaned. I just don't wash my hands. At least it's only my dick that I touch instead of a mystery amount. And I saw a kid once trying to use it and it was mounted too high for him... So he tried grabbing it and pulling himself up to do one hand at a time. When I was 8, I was touching all sorts of gross things...
The worst part is that the people who install these, also take out all the paper towels and trash cans in bathrooms, as if the only use ever for a washing station is to wash your hands only. Not your face, or clean your dentures, or anything else.
Also, since I prefer to open the door with a towel due to the many assholes that go straight from shitter to the door, removing the towel option without giving an option to kick the door out is not a good thing.