Usually The Times of India happens to be my secondary (primary being feeds, obviously!) source for news but today an article in The Hindustan Times (HT) caught my attention. As usual, my eyes were unconsciously scanning for words like Computers, Apple and the likes and finally met "Keyboards". HT today carried an article about keyboards and personal hygiene.
Your computer keyboard could be filthier than a toilet seat.
Thats what the title of the article cautioned.
Computer keyboards are filthier and infested with more bacteria than toilet seats, according to a study by British microbiologist James Francis. He compared samples from 33 keyboards to swabs from a loo seat and a door handle of public toilet.
It further says that keyboards contain dangerous levels of killer bacteria such as the dreaded E coli, S Aureus and Coliform. The latter one is what lead to that article perhaps. These bacterias are known to cause diarrhoea, stomach cramps, fever, loss of apatite, and skin diseases.
Those names were scary enough to make me clean my keyboard before writing this. Its not that I didn't know about it, I have read quite sometimes about this, but today something appealed to me more than others. There was once a story about Keyboard Dandruff in the CHIP magazine. That was long long back, when I didn't have a computer of my own. But once I got it, I've been showing that Keyboard Dandruff to my sister whenever I remove it. That used to be an object of humor for us, but now I realize there were bacteria in those white flakes that came out from between the keys.
After knowing all this, I've decided to blot off my laziness towards cleaning things and from now on I expect myself to regularly clean my keyboard and its surroundings.
Take care of your health people. You never know hazards can crop up from anywhere.
No, not my innocent keyboard please! :(
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