Phone Screen Cleaning Hacks That Do More Damage Than Good
You know by now how dirty your phone can get. And if you’re concerned with your health and hygiene (which we’ll assume you are), then you probably take some time to clean and disinfect your phone.
But what are you cleaning your phone with? The right tools and techniques will no doubt keep your phone clean and so will the wrong ones. The only problem is that the wrong methods will damage your phone in the process.
So the question is how do you give your phone a regular screen cleaning without ruining it?
Just Because It Cleans, Doesn’t Mean It’s Safe to Use
Some of the most commonly used cleaning agents happen to be the ones that send phones to the cemetery of mobile devices prematurely. The reason for this is that most of us are accustomed to using these products for almost everything else, and therefore assume that a phone can withstand the same treatment. But that’s not the case.
Harsh Chemical Compounds
First off, let’s take a look at chemical cleaners. Sure, they’re powerful germ-killing agents, but they’re full of other compounds that destroy more than germs. And of course, some of the things they can destroy include your phone’s components.
Alcohol/Ammonia-based products
Alcohol and ammonia will kill germs on your phone, but they can cause some damage as well. On the surface, alcohol creates unsightly marks on your screen due to the high level of acidity. After it dries, it might leave a smudge that just doesn’t come off. You’d have to replace the screen (or worse, the entire phone) to remove those stains.
Alcohol is also especially bad for phones because it contains water. If you use alcohol or an alcohol-based product and it seeps into your phone ports, water could short-circuit your device because of its conductivity. This could lead to malfunction or total hardware failure.
Finally, alcohol, ammonia and other fluids can activate your phone’s liquid damage indicator (LDI), the component that tells companies if your phone has suffered water damage. This is bad news because if the LDI is triggered, then your warranty may become void.
Abrasive Phone Cleaning Tools
Think your skin is soft and sensitive? You wouldn’t believe how fragile your screen is. While your tough skin can handle a brush with relatively rough surfaces, your screen is vulnerable to scratches from things that may seem gentle to you.
Paper Towels/Regular Towels
Paper towels are noticeably rougher than toilet paper (try wiping your nose with both to feel the difference). These quicker-picker-uppers have thicker textures for better absorption, and the surface of toilet paper is abrasive, making it very easy to scratch a phone’s surface.
It’s important to avoid using these heavy duty towels because repeated use will lead to a build-up of scratches. Once the scratches accumulate, your screen will get less and less responsive to the point of not even working in some cases.
Forceful Wiping
When scrubbing the bathtub, the use of force is required. When wiping a phone, the use of force is damaging. Unfortunately, a lot of people put too much pressure when wiping their phones, which is a bad idea for the standard LCD phone screen.
Too much pressure put on a phone can damage not only the screen, but the ports as well. This method of cleaning comes from a need to put some “muscle” into a job, which is a completely backwards way of wiping off your screen.
Better Ways to Clean Your Phone
Are you guilty of resorting to one of these methods to clean your mobile device?
If so, don’t feel bad. You can keep your phone shiny and almost germ-free by choosing the right products and using the right methods to keep it clean. In fact, there are alternatives to all three of the harmful ones mentioned above.
Use a Chemical-Free Cleaner
You don’t need harsh chemicals to sanitize and shine your device. Once you accept that, you’ll realize that the alcohol and ammonia-based products most people use is unnecessary.
Take for example our ScreenShine. It is:
- Alcohol-free
- Ammonia-free
- Anti-static
- Haze-free
- Streak-free
It does the job of typical cleaners minus the acidity, killing germs and polishing screens without leaving unsightly stains behind. As an added benefit, it’s non-toxic nature makes it safe to keep around the house since it poses no health risks to your kids or pets.
Use a Cloth With a Soft Touch
The best cloth surface for phone screen cleaning is one that glides. This type of cloth picks up dirt with a just a few gentle motions - there’s no need to press down on a screen. Your best option that fits this description is a microfiber cloth.
Microfiber cloths are the opposite of abrasive paper towels and they come with three distinct benefits:
- They’re made with interwoven fabric patterns that allow them to pick up more dirt than regular towels and cloths
- They’re 50 - 100 times thinner than human hair, meaning they won’t scratch your screen
- They are antimicrobial unlike almost all paper towels or regular ones
Wipe Softly
Finally, there’s no replacement for harsh wiping other than to lighten your hand. This one requires more of a psychological intervention and since we’re not therapists, you’ll have to find ways to remind yourself to take it easy. With that said, even just using the microfiber cloth might give you a reason to wipe your screen a little bit more gently.
Phone Screen Cleaning Without the Damage
There are 1001 ways (okay, maybe not so many) to clean your phone, but many of them can damage your device. So instead of turning to a method or product that causes damage, rely on the ones that do the job without shortening your phone’s lifespan. With our ScreenShine and microfiber cloths, you can be sure to get the deep clean you want without any added baggage.