Digital era’s new best friends include smartphones, laptops, personal assistants and many other gadgets you can think of. Day by day gadgets are getting more personal and more important for us. We spend most of the time using these beloved devices, coming in contact with them throughout the day, placing them anywhere without caring about the surroundings and who else sleeps with their gadgets by their side? We have a misconception that our hands are clean after hand wash even when the next thing we touch is our gadget.
Keep on reading to know ways to eradicate these crawling bacterias on your favourite appliances.
1. Smartphone/Tablet care
Fact: Your phone carries 25,000 bacteria per square inch!
Smartphones and tablets have become a part of our hands and therefore it is very necessary to clean them regularly. Don’t just clean but completely remove these germs residing on your phone.
Where to look for these germs, you ask? The maximum bacteria is found on the back side of your phone, then comes the screen and don’t forget the edges, speaker grills and ports. To begin with, you can use Q-tips in order to be precise. Even if you know where all to clean, it's necessary to know you can’t just swipe off with a cloth. An important disinfectant is essential to ensure no germs are left on the device. A good wipe with a professional cleaning solution containing isopropyl alcohol or Clorox wipes could leave your phone clean. Just spray some little solution on a piece of microfiber cloth and swipe gently on your phone’s surface.
It is also important to note what not to use to clean your phone. For starters, do not use water or soap on the screen, even if your phone is waterproof. Pure alcohol, bleaches, and aerosol sprays can lead to damaging your phone’s screen and thus should be avoided. The kind of material you use to clean your phones should also be thought about.
Hack: Buying a reusable and tough cover for your phone could save your efforts of cleaning your phone. Simply wash the cover and you are good to go!
2. Laptop care
Fact: Your keyboard has 7,500 bacteria per swab!
Almost everyone dislikes the tedious task of cleaning their laptops and it is obvious why. It takes a good amount of effort, patience and 2-3 hours of your day.Make sure you clean the screen, keyboard, mouse and mousepad properly and efficiently. Doing so is necessary, as it is the device you use daily for your work and comes in contact with your fingertips, dust, food particles and what not. Also, not only clean your laptop for your own health and safety concerns but even for your Laptop’s health. Dust particles, food particles, tiny fibres are dangerous if they enter inside. If the dust-covered screen isn’t cleaned, it might affect the display and resolution.
So, now that you know why to clean let’s see how to. Before anything else, make sure your laptop is switched off and not connected to the battery. Then start with little spaces and gaps, as they are the hubspots for germs. For the keyboard, you can use a little fan or compressed air cans to clear the food crumbs and other particles off the gaps. You can reach these little zones on the keyboard as well as ports with Q-tips and later use microfiber cloth to clean the open surfaces and screen. You can use any cleaning agent consisting of isopropyl alcohol to disinfect the area. After leaving it to dry, you can clean it with a dry cloth and then you are free to use the laptop.
Some things to avoid can be related to the pressure you apply while cleaning the delicate keys, mouse buttons or even the screen. Do not swipe back to back on the screen as you will be taking a risk of spoiling the display.
Hack: While cleaning the keyboard, blowing air through straw might come in handy if you don’t have access to compressed air can.
3. Entertainment centre care tips
Fact: There are about 70 bacteria per square inch on your remote
Almost everyone has their little entertainment zone in their living rooms featuring TV, speakers, CD players and maybe a gaming console. It would be great if you clean them all on a daily basis, but seems impossible isn’t it? But here is a little tip: It would just take you half an hour if you clean everything once a week. Simple?
To begin with TV, the bigger the screen the more it is vulnerable to dust. Just wipe it off gently with a soft cloth - similar to how you cleaned your laptop screens. Q-tips are always a solution to clean off minor places. Never spray the disinfectant directly on the screen, instead spray it on the cloth and then wipe it off to clean the screen. Don’t forget to clean the remote too. For your massive speakers, you can use compressed air cans to blow off the dust from the inside and use a dry cloth to clean the speaker’s body. You need to be careful when it comes to cleaning CD players as some of the parts are delicate in nature - like the CD plate. Always use dry cloth and Q-tips to clean the exposed surfaces. When placing the CD on the plate, always blow the dust and do not touch it with your hands or any cloth. Gaming console can also be cleaned similarly.
Hack: If there are any scratches on your CD, you can clean it off using a toothpaste by applying and wiping it in circular motions with a soft cloth. Just be careful, it should not be any abrasive kind or a whitening toothpaste.
4. Care for your Accessories
Fact: Wearing earphones for just an hour can increase the level of bacteria in your ear over 700 times!
While noticing dust and caring for big devices, we often neglect caring about our little accessories. Earphones, pen drives, chargers, personal assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google’s Echo are some of the devices we use on a daily basis. When was the last time you cleaned them? Bummer. Better late than never!
You can have Q-tips to your rescue in order to clean the earphones, pen drives and chargers. Accessories with a wide surface area can be cleaned with a soft cloth too. Just make sure to avoid any contact with water and you are good to go.
Hack: Always keep your earphones inside a small box instead of just keeping it openly in your house, bag or anywhere else. This will prevent dust particles from entering as much as possible.
So, now that you have the necessary information and hacks you can get started with the care routine for your gadgets. Just make sure to be careful and buy the best quality disinfectants and it will be an easy process.
Hope this helped!