Why shouldn’t you clean your cell phone screen with alcohol? – Teach me about Science

Cleaning your cell phone screen with alcohol is not the best idea! Our good cleaning habits can sometimes lead us to do dangerous practices, in this case, for our mobile devices; With our desire to keep these instruments clean and disinfected, we may be reducing their useful life.

How do you normally clean your cell phone? The vast majority of readers will state that they frequently do so with alcohol, since, derived from the disinfection habits learned as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this liquid is within reach of our hands almost anywhere.

In addition, you will frequently accompany the alcohol to clean the screen of your cell phone with toilet paper, napkins, paper towels or your own clothes; the use of both cleaning tools can irreversibly damage the cell phones and significantly reduce their useful life.

Why shouldn’t you clean your cell phone screen with alcohol?

It is true that our cell phones are an enclosure of microorganisms, they are in constant contact with our hands and accompany us everywhere, even to the bathroom, so thinking regarding cleaning and disinfecting it is the most sensible option and, in fact, necessary.

In addition, the constant use that we give to our mobile device causes the fingerprints of our fingers to be marked or that obvious dirt from food remains is found due to the bad habit of consuming our food while using the cell phone. Being, once once more, the necessary cleaning and disinfection.

However, cleaning your cell phone (and other electronic devices) with alcohol is harmful to the screen and is not recommended. Why?

What happens in a summarized way is that it deteriorates the surface of the screen. As is well known by many, cell phone screens are manufactured with special layers that consist of coatings of different composition that serve for touch detection, anti-scratch effects, as well as oleophobic and hydrophobic characteristics, which prevent oil or fats and water, respectively, damage the phone.

In this way, using alcohol to clean the screens wears out these last two coatings mentioned, which are responsible for properly maintaining the cleanliness of our cell phone.

Warns a chemical engineer to BBC that if cleaning with alcohol is frequent, “in the long term we can generate considerable wear on the surface”, in addition, he adds that the screens “are very sensitive to any liquid substance, as in the case of LED, LCD or plasma screens , in which the pixels might be damaged”, which might lead to affect the clarity of the images.

So how to clean the cell phone screen correctly?

The most recommended thing is to do it with microfiber, which is a special fabric that will not cause any type of scratch on your device, in addition, special cleaners should be used for this purpose, which do not have components that are harmful to the screen or have them. in harmless amounts.

Likewise, it is extremely important that you do not apply any cleaning liquid directly for any reason, since, in addition to damaging your screen, this might also have consequences for your loudspeakers. The correct way to do it is by spreading a little liquid on the microfiber and then cleaning the cell phone with it.

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