The Truth About Cleaning Your Phone With Disinfectant Wipes

If you think a toilet seat is the most disgusting thing out there, think again. State Food Safety warns that if you were to compare a toilet set, doorknob, and mobile phone in terms of bacteria per square inch, it would be no contest, with the toilet seat having 1,201 bacteria per square inch, a doorknob being eight times more populated at 8,643 bacteria per square inch, and cell phones carrying a whopping 25,127 bacteria per square inch. Because our mobile phones can be such a breeding ground for bacteria, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Time reports the COVID-19 coronavirus can also survive on the surface of a mobile phone for anywhere between several hours to over a week, depending on the conditions.

The best way to protect you — and your phone — from COVID-19, is not just to wash your hands regularly, but to clean your phone regularly, too. While original guidelines called for phones to be disinfected with a soft cloth and a mix of 60 percent water and 40 percent isopropyl alcohol (via State Food Safety), these rules have changed.

Time reports you're safest using disinfectant wipes that contain 70 percent alcohol to clean your phone. Apple also now says its all right to use Clorox Wipes to clean the display, keyboard, or other exteriors of your smartphone, as well as on other Apple products. But disinfectant wipes seems to be the strongest cleaner you can use on your phone, as CNET says that under no condition can you use bleach. You still shouldn't get the phone wet, and you can't don't drown your Apple gadget in any liquid household cleansers. Time says this applies to all gadgets and electronic devices.

While we've all been given the green light to use disinfectant wipes on our phones, Time recommends that we use care when doing so, as overzealous cleaning and harsh abrasives can cause damage. And above all, remember to wash your hands. Experts remind us that a disinfected cell phone does us no good if our hands aren't clean.