As most of us near the midway point of our first year in a dorm, we quickly realize that despite trying your hardest to avoid germs, they’re everywhere. I know in the case of my floor, there are people I always see leaving the bathroom…without washing their hands. Needless to say, this lack of hygiene strikes fear into my very soul.
In the case of the dorms, due to Penn State now being a school that is “going green,” I no longer have access to paper towels that I would usually use to open the door after washing my hands. I am by no means a Germaphobe, but the idea of the germs I end up encountering right after washing my hands is a little daunting. My alternative to the lack of paper towels, has evolved into the use of my shirt sleeve as my hand’s germ shield when opening the door. So, after looking at one of the pop quiz articles we read entitled, “Do Paper Towels Thwart More Germs Than Air Dryers,” I began to question just how clean using my shirt sleeves are in comparison to the use of my hands when opening the door.
After a bit of research, the biggest types of bacteria found on doors are “staph, E. coli, Enterococcus and sometimes Salmonella” (“Silver Coating Kills Bacteria…). According to Forbes, the Restroom door sis the 6th most germ infected location, which leaves a high probability that these rather disgusting types of bacteria might just be on the ones in your dorm.
Many know all too well that the common cold and variations of it seem to run around campus looking for their next victims every second. According to the National Health Services in the United Kingdom, (Cold viruses) “can survive on countertops for up to six hours, on cloth and paper for 30-45 minutes and on skin for up to 20 minutes” (“How Long Do Bacteria and Viruses Live outside the Body?”).
If this information is true, it would mean that the best option is to, to my dismay, use your hands to open the bathroom door, due to the fact that the bacteria will live for a shorter time period on your hands than on your clothing. The main problem with assuming this, however, is that different bacteria can live on clothing and other surfaces for a longer period of time than others. These different forms of bacteria prove to be third variables that could definitely impact that conclusion, and make it so that the use of a sleeve or other part of your clothing to open the door is the best option.
There is truthfully not enough information that supports this claim to prove that the use of your clothing or hands is the better (and cleanlier) option, and to say that simply opening the door with your hands is the cleanest option, could be considered a false positive in the eyes of science. Yet, according to this study, the use of your hands might be the safest bet, but to me the lack of information leaves this conclusion to still be up in the air.
(Here are some ways that people go about “avoiding germs” in bathrooms.)
Sources:
Cohen, Jennifer. “10 Worst Germ Hot Spots.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 12 June 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.
“How Long Do Bacteria and Viruses Live outside the Body?” How Long Do Bacteria and Viruses Live outside the Body? Gov.UK, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.
“Silver Coating Kills Bacteria on Campus Door Handles.” Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. Pennsylvania State University, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.
I definitely think that using your clothes is a better option than your hands, even though not completely ideal. I think that’s why they tell us to sneeze in our elbows rather than our hands. Another issue I have with the bathrooms on campus is that it’s often hard to grab the door with clothing because all of the bathrooms have pull doors!
I’ve definitely found myself doing the clothes-wipe after washing my hands, especially since we aren’t supposed to use the hand dryer during quiet hours. My favorite bathrooms on campus are the ones in the HUB because they have the door foot…thingy? I don’t know what you call it, but it prevents you from touching anything at all–I wish they all had this.
I’ve definitely found myself doing the clothes-wipe after washing my hands, especially since we aren’t supposed to use the hand dryer during quiet hours. My favorite bathrooms on campus are the ones in the HUB because they have the door foot…thingy? I don’t know what you call it, but it prevents you from touching anything at all–I wish they all had this.
I don’t know why that second paragraph posted. The first paragraph and the link is for this blog, and the second paragraph was my comment for the blog about genes and athletic performance.
This topic interested me because there are so many people that do not wash their hands after going to the bathroom and it is pretty disgusting. I agree with you and the statistics that using your clothes would be a better option. I often use my sleeve of my shirt to open the bathroom door, but then again, germs are easily attracted to articles of clothing. I always use hand sanitizer after I wash my hands to kill off as many germs as possible. However, using clothing is a better option than using your hands because your hands touch about every surface imaginable. More research and experiments need to be conducted to compare the results of using clothing when opening the bathroom door vs using your hands. We still don’t really know which one is better because there is a lack of evidence in this topic. Third variables can easily play a part in this issue because there can be all different kinds of bacteria living on your body, hands, and clothes. The link below talks about the myth that the toilet seat is the dirtiest appliance in the bathroom. However, the bathroom floor is actually the dirtiest thing in the bathroom. Check it out below!
This post really fascinated me. I have always wondered if there was a certain gene or genes that contributed to athleticism and why maybe some people were better at sports than others. Of course, sometimes it could be due to chance and just natural ability, but genes seem to have to be involved somehow. I am a pretty fast runner, so from what you posted, I guess I have a good X allele contributing to my endurance. I think if there was research showing athletic parents and experimenting with their genes in comparison to their offspring will be a better indicator to the correlation between athletics and genes. If anyone is interested in reading this book, you can purchase it on Amazon. It goes into depth about the relationship between genes and athletic performance. The other link below discussions this phenomenon as well, but says that scientists still aren’t quite sure as to if a gene can actually promote athletic performance. It is still a mystery. In my opinion, I believe there is still a wide range of factors that contribute to athletic performance (muscle mass, natural ability, previous skill, etc).
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/story?id=1213831
I think that using your clothes would be a better option, especially if it the end of the day. You can always wash the germs off of your clothes and they attract germs anyway. You can also get toilet paper from the stalls and use that. Using your clothes or toilet paper are better than using your hands because you touch your face with your hands and all other things, Whereas your clothes do not really connect with your face or mouth.