The Hidden World of Illness-Causing Germs on School Electronics

Using laptops and tablets has become a common daily occurrence in schools. Students spend an average of 98 to 144 minutes per day on a school electronic device.¹ This is more than 20% of their total daily class time.¹ But while children using electronics has changed over the years, what hasn’t changed are cleaning protocols.

Currently, most school custodians don’t clean or sanitize electronics. Electronic devices like laptops and tablets can carry germs and contribute to the spread of illnesses, especially in school environments where children are more susceptible to infections and tend to share everything. This makes regular cleaning of shared devices essential to maintaining a healthy environment for both students and staff.

What we found lurking on school electronics

Student laptops and tablets are some of the highest-touch surfaces in schools, but they are cleaned the least frequently. We recently tested electronics from an elementary school in California and uncovered the hidden truth about germs on school devices. During the peak cold and flu season in January 2025 we took 24 laptops from a first-grade classroom and 24 tablets from a kindergarten classroom. We swabbed each device to determine how many bacteria overall were on them and what types. All 48 devices showed bacterial contamination. In fact, there were five times more bacteria on the school devices than what you'd find on a public toilet seat!² The bacterium linked to staph infections, Staphylococcus, was also found on 33% of laptops and 37.5% of tablets tested. After testing how germy the laptops and tablets were, we sanitized each device with a sanitizing electronics wipe. Our study found that after using the sanitizing wipes, NONE of the devices tested positive for Staphylococcus bacteria. Sanitizing electronics wipes can be an excellent solution to help prevent the spread of illness-causing germs during the school year.

Safe cleaning for sensitive tech: Choosing the right wipes

The right wipes for school electronics will be a wipe that can kill bacteria AND clean grimy messes. Most existing wipes for electronics focus primarily on cleaning screens and may not kill bacteria. A further challenge is that most contain alcohol, which can degrade plastic surfaces.³ Since plastic is often a key material found in most electronic devices, device parts such as keyboard markings and trackpads may become damaged when cleaned with wipes containing alcohol as a primary ingredient. Ideally, you should choose a wipe that has the following features:

1. Kills bacteria (at least a sanitizing wipe).
2. Is made with a low-linting cloth so that it will not leave behind white flecks. Most disinfecting wipes are made with a cloth that leaves behind heavy amounts of white flecks and lint that can impact aesthetics.
3. Is compatible with plastics (no alcohol as a primary ingredient).
4. A wipe with these features will give you the best combination of bacteria kill, cleaning and low linting to help keep electronics free of contaminants and help maintain the device so it can be used for as long as possible.

Keeping it clean: Best practices for school electronics

Once you find the perfect sanitizing electronic wipe, consider adding electronic cleaning to your current cleaning contracts or providing teachers with wipes to use themselves. Teach your staff how to properly sanitize electronics or provide information to teachers about how to sanitize these surfaces. Here is what we recommend:

1. Have teachers sanitize student devices weekly or if possible, daily to help prevent the spread of illness causing germs.
2. Choose a sanitizing wipe that is designed for use on electronic devices and has a short contact time (less than 30 seconds to sanitize).
3. Thoroughly wipe all external surfaces of the device, leave the surface visibly wet long enough to meet the contact time on the product label, and either let the surface air dry or use a clean, dry cloth to remove any excess solution.

We also recommend wiping the exterior of a device first, followed by the keyboard and then screen. For larger devices, use an S-shaped pattern to move the wipe from top to bottom. See here for a protocol for sanitizing electronics. With the right wipe in place, you can help protect student laptops and tablets from illness-causing germs.