Your Controller Is Dirtier Than Your Toilet

Yeah, that’s not a joke. The average desktop has been found to have 400 times more bacteria than a toilet bowl, largely because people clean their toilets and never think to clean their keyboards or controllers. And if you’re spending hours a day with your hands on a controller, eating snacks, sweating, and never wiping anything down — that number’s not going in the right direction.

Most of those germs are harmless. That part is worth saying clearly. But not all of them are, and the ones that aren’t can stick around longer than you’d think. Research on keyboard and phone surfaces has confirmed that once bacteria land on a surface, they can survive for extended periods — especially if they’re not cleaned off. Viruses like the flu have been shown to survive two to three days on keyboards and similar surfaces.

The reason controllers and keyboards get so bad so fast comes down to a simple fact: warmth, skin oils, food crumbs, and rarely-cleaned plastic are basically a five-star hotel for bacteria. Every time you reach for a snack mid-session and go back to your controller without washing your hands, you’re adding to the collection.

Sharing gear makes this way worse. If you’re handing a controller to a friend who’s sick, or using a shared keyboard in a computer lab, you’re not just picking up your own germs. You’re picking up everyone else’s too.

Cleaning it is actually easy. Power everything off first. Use a slightly damp microfiber cloth — not soaking wet — and wipe down the surfaces. For keyboards, you can use compressed air to get the junk out from between the keys. Isopropyl alcohol wipes (70% concentration) work well on controllers and are safe on most plastic surfaces. Just don’t spray anything directly onto the hardware.

Do it once a week and you’re already doing better than most people. Wash your hands before gaming if you’ve been eating. Don’t share controllers with someone who’s clearly sick. That’s genuinely most of what you need to know.