And why would those only be a concern if you are eating at your desk, not whe you are working on it and (gasp!) touching you phone, tablet, mouse, keyboard, etc?

Whenever I read an unqualified claim "there are more bacteria on your keyboard than on a toilet seat", I think "hm, most people must be spending way more time than necessary cleaning their toilets". But of course, the scientist in me also thinks the kinds of bacteria present will make an impact. The bacteria on a toilet seat might be similar to the zillions of bacteria in my stomach, or they might be E. Coli, salmonella, tetanus, syphilis, etc.

Putting that into greater perspective with some data: studies have shown your desk environment to have 400 times more bacteria than toilet seats.

That's because, most of the time, a keyboard/mouse will NEVER be cleaned (and desks themselves something like twice a year) while toilet seats will be cleaned quite often, even more than once per day in a big enough office.

I clean my keyboard and mouse regularly, as well as try to keep my hands clean while I'm working (if I eat a chocolate, I'll wash my hands afterwards, for example), but I know I'm the exception.

Should we be worried by that? I presume there's some qualitative differences between desk-dwelling bacteria and toilet-seat-dwelling bacteria.

Great question. To be honest, when I was doing my research I was able to come across multiple quotations of a study talking about these numbers. However, attempts to actually find a copy of the study in question led me to two different dead links. It's why I didn't bring it up in my blog post. I simply couldn't find a copy of the source; as compelling as a statement regarding toilet seats may be.

I hate that it's so hard to find a copy of an academic study.

Should you a find a copy of the study that explored and expounded upon this, I would love to see a link.

I agree with you. If you simply turn your keyboard upside down and give it a few slaps you will see a lot of grubbiness comming out!

Im going to invent a keyboard that has a toaster-style pullout.

But then your code will always be either slightly too-heavily cooked or not-quite-cooked-enough!