Mobile phones seven times dirtier than a toilet seat, finds new study

Toilet seats are far cleaner than the average mobile phone – a shocking new study has revealed.
Initial Washroom Hygiene took swab samples from smartphones and found the average device is nearly seven times dirtier than a toilet seat.
Those clad in leather cases harboured the most bacteria and even phones in easier-to-clean plastic cases have more than six times the germs found on toilet seats, reports Mail Online.
Initial Washroom Hygiene took swabs using a handheld device which highlights live microbes on the surface.
While toilet swabs showed bacteria on around 220 areas around the seat, the average mobile phone boasted a disgusting 1,479 such spots.
Experts have warned that mobiles become filthy because people take them into the bathroom.
Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen told the Mail: “Swabbing a smartphone is almost like checking your handkerchief for germs.
“You are likely to find them because of the close physical contact you have with this device several times a day.”
He said that the bugs on mobiles will “probably be people’s own bacteria so the likelihood of passing on disease is low”.
However, Prof Penning added, “it might be ill-advised to pass smartphones around between people.”