Monday, January 23, 2006

Wash hands after using

Here's something to consider as you sit at your keyboard reading this. From the Swedish publication PCs for Everyone a short piece entitled, Ny undersökning visar: Ditt tangentbord är skitigare än en toalettring, which loosely translated means: New Research shows your keyboard is shittier than a toilet seat.

The kind folks at PC För Alla tell us a lab they hired showed 33,000 bacteria per square centimeter on their keyboards, 265 times more than on a toilet seat. I read the article and I didn't think the writing was that shitty, but hey, my Swedish isn't that good. The bacteria were accompanied by 3100 fungi. The dirtiest keys were the return and spacebar.

Of course I don't know any data that says you can get disease from bacteria, fungi or viruses on a keyboard, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. The article says that while there might be many ways to clean your keyboard (like what?), PC for Everyone's advice for avoiding keyboard transmitted colds and influenza is the simplest: wash your hands after using.

Hat tip, Slashdot for alerting me to the article, which is here (of course, it's in Swedish).