An intriguing article in today’s The Sacramento Bee says that the new generation of touch screen devices might actually be harbouring a rather nasty little secret in the form of all sorts of bugs that might have transferred themselves onto the screen, and could then infect their user, especially if the device, such as an iPad, is shared with other people during the upcoming colds and flu season.
“If you’re sharing the device, then you’re sharing your influenza with someone else who touches it,†said Timothy Julian, a doctoral student at Stanford University who has co-authored a study on the spread of viruses.
And it’s possible that iPad users are even more vulnerable than mobile phone users, as iPads are more likely to be passed around or used by lots of different people, especially as they’re now being used in classrooms, on campuses and in offices, where they might not belong to a specific person even.
If you keep your iPad at home and don’t let anyone else use it, then you’ve probably got nothing to worry about, but if you let people pass it round, it might be a good idea to invest in some touch-screen friendly anti-septic wipes.
Source: The Sacramento Bee
