If you use public bathrooms, this one's for you. I’ll start this one off with a warning though, the following pictures and/or video of an experiment relating to public bathrooms might be disturbing for some of you.

Hand dryers are a thing of convenience that is mostly used in public spaces. They are more economical than paper towels, and they may be used in a supposedly clean place, but did you know that they may not be as hygienic as they were believed to be?

PHOTO: Unsplash/K Eareast

The debate between hand dryers and paper towels isn’t something new. There has been a study from the past that claims that both options were equal when it comes to cleanliness. But then there have also been numerous studies that suggest that using paper towels is more hygienic compared to hand dryers.

That last claim was just recently proven once again by an individual who decided to run their own experiment, and their video has gone viral with its shocking results.

The researcher opens their experiment by asking, “How germy is it?” It’s their fun little series, I’m guessing. From what they said in the video, it looks like this isn’t their first time measuring the germs found when using a hand dryer.

PHOTO: Youtube/The Independent

As an upgrade from their previous tests, this time the researcher wanted to have a control, where an individual just shakes their hand dry. Then they proceed to gather multiple samples from different hand dryers located in different public bathrooms.

The researcher left the samples in an incubator for three days to let the bacteria, if any, grow. And, boy, did it grow.

Apart from the control air-dry sample, the multiple petri dishes that had samples from the air dryers had a truly gross appearance compared to the control. It is horrifying to think that something made to help us get clean is doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do.

If you think you can stomach the knowledge that you have possibly exposed yourself to the many germs that a hand dryer can give to an individual, watch the grossly intriguing experiment in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLUM9Ywov_Q