Your phone is disgusting. Here's how to clean it | Lotti Tajouri

Lotti Tajouri (0:00)

You can wash your hands perfectly, but the very moment you touch your phone, you re-contaminate them. Remember, your phone is your third hand, and it is the dirtiest one you have.

Elise Hu (0:18)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. You wash your hands after using the bathroom, before eating, and when caring for someone who's sick. But what about after holding the object you touch thousands of times a day?

For molecular biologist Lotti Tajouri, that question became personal after he watched health care workers use their smartphones in the operating room during the births of both his children. So he started swabbing phones, and what he found was unsettling.

Lotti Tajouri (0:50)

In our research at Bond University and Murdoch University Australia, we swabbed 26 mobile phones belonging to doctors and nurses working in pediatric wards and intensive care. On those phones, we identify over 11,000 microorganisms, including bacteria and viruses responsible for serious hospital acquired infections.

Elise Hu (1:16)

In this talk, Lotti takes us from hospital wards to international airports, showing how our phones carry microbes, including drug-resistant ones, everywhere we go, and how they can undo even the most careful hand washing. But he says the fix doesn't have to be complicated. That's coming up right after a short break. And now, our TED Talk of the day.

Lotti Tajouri (1:49)

In 2014, my beautiful wife, Sandra and I were expecting a first child. Close to the due date, my wife felt unusual movement. And being first-time parents, we were understandably nervous, so we rushed to the hospital. The medical team identified that the baby had placed herself in a bridge position, and in an act of stubborn determination that would come to know and love in her, she wouldn't be moved.

Within minutes, an emergency c-section was called. My wife was calm and brave. I felt like someone had just swept my legs out from under me. A few moments later, I entered the surgical theater to hold my wife's hand during the birth of her daughter. Geared up in the full suit of protective equipment, from the very sexy bonnet on my head to the shoe bodies on my feet, all in the name of keeping germs out and the surgical theater sterile. I was nervous and wanted my entire focus to be on my wife. But I could not help but be distracted when I noticed health care workers using their smartphones in the theater, gloves on, in a supposedly sterile environment. In my defense, and I couldn't help it, as a molecular biologist, I knew about all the germs that had just hitched a ride on those phones into that room, where my wife's body was exposed through her C-section incision, and where my newborn daughter, Emily, was taking her first breaths.

And trust me, the germ situation is not good.

I didn't say anything at the time.

I don't know whether it was the absolute joy and overwhelming sense of love you feel at witnessing the birth of your child, or the fear of what my wife might do if I brought my day job work into her emergency C-section.

I just stayed silent. And in the following weeks and months between the nappy changing, the sleep deprivation, and the joy, it dropped out of mind. I assumed that someone else would realize the absurdity of sterilizing every tool in the room and having everyone wear protective gear while allowing people to bring unsterilized smartphones into that same space and touch them with the very gloves used in patient care.

Three years later, we were back at the hospital. Our second baby, Matteo, decided to recreate his sister's renegades move.

This time a transverse position. Another C-section operation followed. And once again, I saw health care workers weave smartphones into surgical fiara. That was it for me.

It had now put both of my babies and my wife twice at elevated risk. Now, it's personal.

I decided I needed to act. Step one, no more babies.

And step two, I will use my research as a molecular biologist to expose smartphones for what they are. A wonderful tool that left unchecked is a biological hazmat situation we all carry around with us every day. I am on a mission to teach the world how to use smartphones safely from a biological hazard perspective and to make our hospitals, health care settings, and quite unexpectedly, our biosecurity safer. So let's talk microbiology for a moment. When we say germs, we're using a broad term. It includes bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. Microscopic organisms that exist everywhere. But it's important to say this clearly. Not all microbes are bad. In fact, many are essential. They help us digest food, produce vitamins, and even protect us against infections. We wouldn't survive without them. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today, we're talking about the germs that cause disease, especially if you are immunologically incompetent, vulnerable, and fragile. The ones that don't belong on surgical gloves, in neonatal wards, or on devices that constantly move between hands, faces, and environments. And that brings us to mobile phones, because your phone is effectively your third hand. Around 80% of common infectious diseases are spread through hand contact. And that's why hand washing works. And it's why a contaminated phone quietly undoes it. We touch our phone thousands of times a day. On average, for three and a half to four hours. And unlike our actual hand, this third hand is almost never cleaned. From a microbiological perspective, your phone is an ideal environment for microorganisms. It's a high-touch surface. It's constantly recontaminated by your fingers. And over time, it accumulates bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. In other words, your phone is less like a personal device and more like a five-star accommodation hotel for microbes.