We use our cell phones every day in this tech obsessed and ultra connected golden age of consumerism. For most of us, they are in our hands from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep at night. At this point you have definitely seen how the grease or makeup stains where your fingers or face have repeatedly touched the screen accumulate. Shirt corners and jacket sleeves have seen more than their fair share of combat against such messiness on your screen. Have you ever thought about how many germs are lingering on your phone?

Research shows that your cell phones often hold more germs than a toilet seat!

You’re darn right that’s gross.

To keep your cell phone cleaner, try these simple steps:

1. Power off the phone. You don’t want to accidentally dial your friends or colleagues while cleaning.
2. Remove the cover or case if you use one so that you can clean away the dirt and grime that gets caught in the crevices inside the phone cover.
3. With your chosen weapon of choice, usually some kind of cloth like a microfiber screen cleaner, make long strokes down your screen from earpiece to microphone. This will prevent the dirt from collecting in the earpiece. After you’ve spent some time wiping towards your mouthpiece, proceed to clean that area thoroughly with your cloth.
4. If your phone is crusted with dirt along the edges where your case was, you can dampen your cell phone screen cleaner cloth, or a q-tip before cleaning your screen. Make sure that you only dampen the cloth a bit. Do not use a cloth dripping with water, which has a small chance of damaging your cell phone.
5. Make sure to use light pressure when cleaning your phone, and do not use regular household cleaning products or rubbing alcohol, which can damage your phone.
6. Advanced Pro Tip: Take your phone apart and do a deep clean on all the connectors or parts. This is extremely rare, especially nowadays with the more hermetically sealed phones, but if you are a smoker or work in an industry where your hands get really dirty, like a mechanic or construction, the performance of your phone will definitely say thank you.

A note on why we keep mentioning ‘microfiber’ when talking about cleaning your devices. Microfiber has very very micro fibers that have magnetic properties that clean micro germs and grime better than most other cloths. That is why it’s a preferred screen cleaner.

These same steps can be used to clean your tablet too. Keep all of your devices more germ-free with a microfiber screen cleaner and a few minutes of your time.