Your butt might be cleaner but your hands ?
Only if you have soap, which often is not used . And you have to make sure you get the shit out from under your fingernails. There’s a reason why Arabs avoid eating with their left hand.
I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t use those pre-moistened wipes after going to the bathroom. Can you even imagine changing a baby’s diaper and only using toilet paper? Didn’t think so. Then imagine how much nastier an adult’s shit is. Seriously? You’re not going to use anything more than toilet paper?
Do you seriously believe most of the third world uses a bidet and soap? Really?
Most rural peasants don’t even have plumbing, and simply walk into the fields with nothing more than a small pitcher of water. Soap is a luxury for the vast majority of your fellow Earth-dwellers.
I was taught the paper towel thing when I worked IT in a hospital, but my grandmother picked it up when she was a nurse in the 70s. Not that I do it all the time, but I did in or near the path lab.
When I was in an ER in Madrid, there was a light switch that was touch activated with a very short timer so that in the course of using the restroom I had to touch it three times, once while sitting on the toilet. I was very annoyed that they were making sure everyone had to touch one spot for maximum germ sharing. I also was annoyed when a doctor put up her hair then pulled on gloves and gave me a pelvic and even touched her hair once after putting on the gloves before examining me. I saw several nurses/doctors in that ER go from patient to patient without washing hands.
As per the OP, I trhought it was years ago on Oprah that some doctor (not Dr. Oz)
recommended touching things with the paper towel.
In any case, I must do the same…for I am one of these filthy buggars who could spread disease: all day long, I am touching the vilest, dirtiest things on the planet…other people’s money, other people’s steering wheels, other people’s gearshifts and door handles, etc.
Spend a lot of time on the toilet do you ?
Bacterial transfer is also a function of contact time.
Why do you believe I believe that? Maybe because you have a feverish imagination? Because you make up shit? Why?
Well perhaps if restrooms stocked pre-moistened wipes rather than toilet paper, people would use them. Of course that’s never going to happen in public restrooms, so it’s just wishful thinking at best.
Of course, a baby is considerably different because most adults don’t wallow around in their own shit after releasing it, so I’m not seeing the complete connection.
I just meant using them at home.
Most babies aren’t left in dirty diapers that long and could be cleansed as well as adults are cleansing themselves with mere toilet paper (that is, not as well as they would be cleaned by simply using pre-moistened wipes.)
I don’t think that it’s necessarily true that if they were provided, people would use them. If it were, you’d see the wipes in everyone’s homes. I have seen them in maybe one person’s home. Do people think they’re too expensive? I just don’t get why you wouldn’t want to use these in addition to or instead of toilet paper.
In the book *Cheaper by the Dozen *(published 1948) the father of the family is described as not wanting to touch the door knobs in the men’s rooms at roadsides rests. IIRC, he used his coattails to open the doors. That’s the earliest popular-culture version of the “don’t touch bathroom fixtures” meme I can think of. The father died in 1924.
Howard Hughes (1905 – 1976) mentioned up-thread was not viewed as a crazy germaphobe until fairly late in his public life, the early 1950s, I think.
Well, we probably have a leg up on those desert dwellers who use one hand for shaking and the other for wiping 
I think the more important question is, “Do these people really think that one or two layers of porous paper towel are an effective barrier to the millions of germs on the door handle?”
I really can’t imagine it makes much difference.
I saw a lot of it working in a very large corporate IT department–with, alluding to the possibility of correlation mentioned, many East Asian and South Asian employees. Not everybody did it, but there were certainly a great many who did, judging by the overflowing trashcans by the restroom doors.
I usually use the back of my hands or the side of an arm (usually clothed) when opening rest room doors on the way out. Or even a hip or foot to assist. Sure, any germs present would transfer to the back of my hands or clothes or limbs, but it’s the front side of my hands that is more likely to touch me or things that touch me soonest. Germs transfer best on damp surfaces, die quickly, and not 100% of all germs present transfer between two contact surfaces, so this would seem to minimize the risk: dry surfaces, extended time, and multiple contacts needed to do damage.
I get the paper toweling ready by tearing it off and holding it close to my body with my arm, turn the faucet on, squirt the soap on my hands, wash well, use the paper towel to dry my hands, use it to turn off the water faucet(s), then use it on the door handle. I’ve done this ever since I was 12 or so, so we are talking 40 years give or take. Oh, also won’t touch the toilet handle without either tissue or toilet paper to cover the handle with. Yeah, I’m somewhat fixated about this but that’s how it is and I’m fine with it. Everyone still likes me in spite of my out-of-the-norm behavior anyway.
I’ve been advised by a very knowledeable plumber that premoistened wipes should never be flushed, even the ones that say they’re flushable.
I imagine a fair number of people have either been told this also, either by their plumbers or friends/acquaintances who have heard it from their plumbers.
I agree premoistened towelettes are nice, but I think most people would rather use something flushable rather than having shit-wiped towelettes accumulating in the bathroom wastebasket all day.
One of my favorite SDMB quotes was from an ass-wiping thread (one of the many, I’m sure), from someone extolling the virtues of the premoistened towelette. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said that due to his hairy ass, he often faced a situation akin to “getting peanut butter out of carpet”. This was years and years ago, but needless to say, it’s stayed with me.
They work very well for getting you clean, but they are not good to use with an on site septic system, as they don’t break down as well as toilet paper. Even the “flushable” wipes tend to fill a septic tank quickly. As an example, put a piece of toilet paper in a glass of water and watch it break down before your eyes. A flushable wipe will take much, much longer.
As to the OP: I never actually observe people doing it, but have heard of it for years. Me, I just use my pinky (or pinky and thumb for a knob-type handle).
Curious, anyone think bidets will ever take hold in America? I’d love to have one.
I don’t wash my hands, ever. They get washed in the shower, and while washing dishes. Otherwise, I suppose you should avoid me.
Sorry to hijack, but I worked with an engineer with the shiniest hands imaginable, and long fingernails, too. I encountered him many times leaving from the stall and never stopping to wash his hands, just out the door and back to work.
He definitely had a neat freak look to him, yet he’d never wash his hands. I thought maybe he disinfected back at his cubicle, but never saw that either.