Germaphobes have lots of germs on them

Buuut..... look at the size of it, where the contact surfaces are, and where you hold it. Every time you touch the cootie key it’s like touching everything it has touched. Every time it goes in your pocket it’s like taking a little piece of whatever contaminated thing you touched with you. Your pockets and other keys get contaminated, and thus anything you put in your pockets including your hands. given time, through the shedding of skin, contact friction, and the bodies other mechanisms- you will somewhat self clean, or at least reap many contaminants. The cootie key will only clean when washed, and even then may harbor germs in tiny imperfections or abrasions in the plastic. Repeated incomplete cleanings will result in colonization by increasingly resistant organisms which will multiply, feeding off each other, your dead skin, and contaminants you add to the system with each use. You could only touch it with gloves- but then why not just carry and use gloves to begin with?

I'm using such a device, I call it "some random thing I happen to carry in one of my pockets".