6 Tips for Disinfecting Your Mobile Phone

How to Keep Your Elec­tron­ics Germ-Free

Whether we’re scrolling through social media while wait­ing in social dis­tanc­ing lines at the gro­cery store, log­ging in to a night­ly video chat with our extend­ed friends and fam­i­ly or flip­ping through our favorite stream­ing ser­vice to find the next show to binge, we’re touch­ing our elec­tron­ic devices more than ever. These fre­quent­ly touched and shared devices, such as mobile phones, head­phones, key­boards and remote con­trols, are often over­looked when clean­ing and dis­in­fect­ing your home and per­son­al items.

To effec­tive­ly elim­i­nate as many germs as pos­si­ble and reduce the spread of dis­eases like COVID-19, it’s impor­tant to clean all com­mon­ly used sur­faces through­out your home, car and hand­bag, includ­ing your elec­tron­ic devices. Here are six tips to dis­in­fect your elec­tron­ic devices.

  • Pow­er off the device, then unplug it and/​or remove any batteries.
  • Remove any pro­tec­tive case, which can trap mois­ture and dam­age the device.
  • To remove debris that may be stuck in between keys and but­tons, turn the item upside down and tap it light­ly against your palm. For more stub­born par­ti­cles, use a com­pressed air can­is­ter or clear tape. 
    • Apply your cho­sen dis­in­fec­tant solu­tion with a wipe rather than a spray to avoid excess liq­uid from enter­ing and dam­ag­ing the device. Be sure to select a clean­ing prod­uct that con­tains at least 70 per­cent alco­hol and avoid prod­ucts con­tain­ing high amounts of bleach.
    • If stores are sold out of your go-to clean­ing prod­uct, you can mix your own by adding 4 tea­spoons of rub­bing alco­hol or bleach to 4 cups of water. If you decide to use a solu­tion that con­tains bleach, wipe items with a damp cloth after dis­in­fect­ing them to pre­vent dis­col­oration or damage.
    • Take care not to sub­merge the item in clean­ing prod­ucts or allow flu­id to enter any of its ports.
  • Use a damp­ened cot­ton swab to clean hard­er to reach areas, includ­ing around buttons.
  • Use a soft, lint-free cloth to remove any smudges (rough mate­ri­als includ­ing paper tow­els can scratch glass or dam­age the coat­ing on screens).
  • Let the device air dry com­plete­ly before reap­ply­ing any case and/​or batteries.

When­ev­er pos­si­ble, use dis­pos­able gloves when clean­ing. Oth­er­wise, wash your hands thor­ough­ly for at least twen­ty sec­onds before you begin and again when you are done.

Work dis­in­fect­ing your elec­tron­ic devices into your reg­u­lar rou­tine and take extra spe­cial care to dis­in­fect your mobile phone if you touch it while shop­ping or set it down on a well-traf­ficked sur­face. Fol­low­ing these sim­ple, effec­tive steps to dis­in­fect your elec­tron­ic devices will help reduce your fam­i­ly’s expo­sure to illness.

Some­times, despite our best efforts, ill­ness­es may still devel­op. If you or a fam­i­ly mem­ber is expe­ri­enc­ing an ill­ness we are avail­able to care for you safe­ly in-clin­ic or through a vir­tu­al vis­it. Sched­ule your appoint­ments online.

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