Smartphones are one of the most common things people use everyday. But did you know that a vast amount of bacteria might be living in your smartphone cover?

Studies found that molds and mites were kinds of bacteria multiplying on smartphone covers. Bacteria reproduce quickly on smartphone covers because of humidity. Nobuo Hamada, a researcher from Osaka Museum of Natural History stated “I think there is no actual harm to the health, but it is necessary to pay a little consideration to cleanliness. If you regularly wipe the inside of the covers, you can drastically decrease the presence of molds.”

From March to April 2014, Hamada examined 116 smartphone covers. He used water with dissolved salt on cotton to wipe on smartphone covers. Molds and mites found in each cover were from 100 to 10,000 and 560,000 from the most contaminated one. Molds like spider-web were also noticeable in covers. Moreover, a common mold that lives indoors and outdoors like Aspergillus and Blue molds were the most detected bacteria.

Hamada also considered the span of phone covers usage which resulted to 26.4 molds for less than two years of usage and increased to 73.1 molds for two years and above. He also assessed the covers of male users which had 28.8 molds, higher than female users which had 24.0 molds. There were also 20.7 molds spotted from covers placed in baggage, 23.8 molds from covers placed in breast pockets, and 32.5 in pants.