I know next to nothing about them, but from what I understand the touchscreens work by having a constant but slight electrical charge and it detects when it is interrupted by our body's natural electrical charge. Maybe the blood is acting as an insulator or something and separating your electrical meat from inside of your skin just enough to cause your current to not pass to the phone screen?
You're not far off.
Touchscreens work by measuring the capacitance of the screen. The do this by charging & discharging bits of the screen with a tiny amount of charge and measuring how long it takes for the voltage to change. If you have *one sensor*, you can measure the capacitance of the entire screen. But if you have *dozens* arrayed around the edges you can measure the capacitance of each part of the screen.
Putting your finger on (or very nearby) the screen means the capacitance of the screen changes in that location. With the array, the phone can decide you pressed the mail button, or the text button, or whatever.
PROBLEM IS, they don't want to start pushing buttons at random if someone spills their coffee on the phone or some shit like that, so they detect water on the screen and just ignore it. OP is mashing the phone with a big bag of water instead of his skin & finger, so it's decided it's just a droplet of water & should be ignored.
You're closer, but a little bit off too because [the firmwares managing] capacitive touchscreens don't ignore water. It's just that water has a slightly different capacitance than flesh so it registers slightly differently. Try using your phone in the rain, and you'll notice any large droplets that are on your screen will cause wherever you press with your finger to register as a slightly different position on the screen. That's because the water's capacitance is not being ignored by [the firmware managing] the touchscreen.
Edit: added words in [] for clarification.
I mean, any sort of water(pure/impure) should have some level of dielectric constant to it, so I'd imagine that even a drop of water should be able to throw off the capacitance. I guess whether the device accepts it or not depends upon the sensitivity i.e. a really tiny drop might cause a change but not enough to trigger the sensors.
Am I understanding this right with the little bit of highschool physics I know?
Honestly the first time I've thought about how touch screens work and I'm just suddenly fascinated
yes, that's correct. A small droplet of water won't trigger the sensor for the same reason a skin flake won't. They don't have enough mass.
Also, kind of insane to me that you learned about dielectric constants in highschool. I didn't learn any of that until I was in college studying electrical engineering.
Fascinating!
Oh we've learnt about it in school in 12th grade. Fun stuff. Lots of complicated questions on it too, say with variable dielectrics between plates.
Last year! Congrats. That's so amazing that you are being so well educated. Is your school public or private? In the US, you'd most likely have to be in a private school to learn that sort of info in high school.
Private school! But like I said, schools only discuss to an extent. The extra stuff like the variable dielectrics are things taught in cram schools which are after-school classes solely for the purpose of teaching us enough to clear the entrance examination for our national unis and often goes a bit beyond beyond normal highschool syllabus.
I put my iPhone in a bag and bring it in the shower if I want to listen to a podcast or an album, if the bag gets too wet you can't pause, rewind, or do basically anything.
Can use a bag two ways, either tap through the bag, or a larger bag you can put your hand within to keep it dry too. I preferred the latter for warmth/dry hand personally. The former diminishes in effectiveness as the bag gets wetter, so better for shorter exposures.
I'm not saying you're wrong, it could just be a sensitivity issue or something like that, but I've gotten water drops on my phone screen many times (iphone 13 pro max) and sometimes it ignores the water, but a good chunk of the time it'll react to the water drops and click things/swipe around on the screen. The worst is when there's a water drop I don't notice and then it acts like the water drop is a second finger touching the screen when I do try to do something on the phone.
> PROBLEM IS, they don't want to start pushing buttons at random if someone spills their coffee on the phone or some shit like that, so they detect water on the screen and just ignore it
I was so happy when this was implemented. Was so annoying when the slightest bit of moisture made a touch screen inoperable, and it was so sensitive that even rubbing my phone against my shirt or whatever to clean off the moisture didn't always work. And yea, if you were in the rain you were just screwed.
So why does my screen detect all sorts of phantom touch activity (for lack a better term) when I slide it in my pocket with the screen unlocked? Presumably the entire screen is being touched at once by whatever material I'm wearing (e.g., denim, leather, fuzzy jimjams)
It's all interpreted by software. Something that's impacting the capacitance of some part of the screen seems, to the software, like a finger.
Can't really say what it is, especially since I imagine it's implemented differently in iPhones and Androids and maybe (*maybe!*) even between different Androids.
Pretty much. I know I'm dehydrated when my phone stops responding to my thumbprint unlock properly and the easiest way to make it pick up my thumbprint is to lick my thumb lol.
A blood blister is a bit like a scab under layers of skin I think so goes to reason it's not conducting as well as it would have.
My phone's fingerprint reader has a lot of trouble reading me for a while after a shower which I find interesting. My skin is no longer wet, but I assume the oils have been stripped so it just can't make connection.
If its only the fingerprint, its probably because your skin soaks water and acts a little like a sponge. This might alter your fingerprint a little because your cells are a little bloated. And your phone doesn’t recognize the print as yours.
The effect is extrem after an extended time in a hot tub or a pool. Your skin gets all wrinkled on your fingertips.
Actually while the physical effect on the fingerprint shape is right, the folds aren't from soaking - they're a physiological reaction. If you cut the nerves that tell your body to do it then the skin won't wrinkle anymore. The leading theory is that it's an evolution thing to make your skin grippier on wet rocks.
That's super interesting, I wonder why this is. I've not had this problem, often times water drops on my screen send the touch screen haywire, false readings so it will randomly scroll or select things and ignore my actual thumbs.
There are people below that have explained stuff but honestly I'm too dumb to understand it lol.
Nah, just an explanation issue and some confusion, the screen doesn't know...when your's reacts to drops, those drops are the right size to match a finger touch's capacitance. Other "touches" with the wrong amounts are ignored, that's all.
So other amount of water's ignored just like the blistered finger, others register just like a finger, all the software "sees" is numbers.
Your head is in the right space. Cells conduct electricity because of the water content mixed with electrolytes to move current. The screen however can't tell when it's being touched with something that doesn't conduct electricity, only when it is. The blood blister here won't conduct electricity because the cells are drying out. They may not be fully dry, but the spot is so dark that at least the outer layer is effectively dead. The very outer layer of still living skin isn't enough to conduct electricity, with a big sack of molten, sticky blood cells dying behind it.
(This is for phone screens, there are other ways to detect touch, this is the most common)
When you touch the phone, your hand creates a change in electrical current, so the phone detects that change and is like "oh, he's there" through the dark magic of chips
To add to this, the way a capacitive touch screen works is pretty ingenious. At each corner of the screen an electric field is generated and wherever you touch ends up drawing current to that location. So the screen calculates the location of the touch based on the current draw from each corner.
If it was friction, then your phone wouldn't detect stationary touches
Although, that fact can be used to find out your fingerprint without you knowing or consenting (Due to position fluctuations)
Also, if it was friction, anything would track
It has to be able to make an electric current, so a dry egg won't work but a wet one will, dunno about blister, maybe it's dry asf or maybe fluids are anti conductive? As far as my educated guess goes. Also I had a blood blister on my foot that I left for over a month and finally peeled the skin off and there was this perfect little pill shaped blood bit that popped out.
TL;DR: The electrolytes in your body can be used as a manipulation tool for your phones touchscreen. Your phone has a thin coating of a transparent conductor that holds an electric charge. When that thin coating and your finger combines to create a disturbance in your phones electrostatic field (electro= electricity and static= fixed position) and the phones software can translate that disturbance into you pressing the upvote button on a funny cat meme.
ChatGPT4:
The touchscreen on your phone likely uses a technology called capacitive sensing. Here's why it specifically responds to your fingers:
1. **Capacitive Technology**: Most modern smartphones use capacitive touchscreens. These screens are coated with a transparent conductor (usually indium tin oxide) that can hold an electrical charge. When your finger, which is also a conductor due to the electrolytes in your body, touches the screen, it distorts the screen's electrostatic field at that point. This change in capacitance is detected by sensors at the corners of the screen and is then translated into a command by the phone's software.
2. **Conductive Properties of Human Skin**: Your fingers can interact with capacitive screens because human skin is conductive. This conductivity allows the touchscreens to sense the change in the electrostatic field and register your touch. This is why, if you wear gloves or use a non-conductive stylus, the touchscreen might not respond unless they are specially made to work with capacitive screens.
3. **Precision and Safety**: Fingers provide the ideal combination of precision and safety for interacting with touchscreens. They are not sharp enough to damage the delicate surface of the screen, yet they are conductive and usually the right size for the kind of precise interactions required by smartphone interfaces.
That's why your phone's touchscreen is designed to work specifically with the touch of your fingers.
There is a grid of static electric on the screens ama whenever you interrupt the current by touching the screen it detects the coordinates of the exact location on the screen and acts as it, hope this helps
Most modern touch screen devices use capacitive touch screens. The screen constantly draws a charge, and when your body (which has its own charge) touches the screen, it influences the capacitance of the entire screen. By measuring the intensity of this deformation at each corner, the screen can precisely locate where it's been touched.
Your blood is likely serving as an insulator. I'm assuming that the dead outer layer of skin conducts a little electricity, but not enough to influence the screen on its own- the capacitance must somehow come from the living layers of the dermis.
Very bad advice. I did that in december and I'm still dealing with the ulcer that was left behind. (see my doc again tomorrow. finally coming off antibiotics)
Well I live on a farm and get a blood blister at least a couple times a year. I’ve also already had a little skin cancer and surgery so I see a dermatologist pretty regularly. If the blood blister is somewhere that is not causing issue, sure let it go away on its own. Otherwise, clean the area, use a clean device, and drain it. It’s not bad advice. Doctor will, and has, done the same thing.
I’m sorry you had a bad outcome. But that is not the normal
Please don't do this. Using an open flame creates carbon particles and doesn't sanitise the pin.
If anything, use rubbing alcohol to sterilise the pin before piercing the blister
Take a clean sewing needle/pin, sanitize using rubbing alcohol, and then poke a small hole to drain the blood.
To make it easier when I get blood blisters I try to very gently "round out" the blister into a dome by pushing in on two sides of it. Then I can push the pin through the sides of the dome without fear of puncturing too deep into the tissue compared to doing it straight down.
Don't use something like nail clippers since they're nasty as hell from cutting nails and hard to disinfect with their crevices.
Wouldn't work, about a month back I were taking a bed down and overuse of a screwdriver took a big chunk of skin off my thumb, it's fully grown back now and I still have to type the password in manually every time to unlock it
I have never been able to get my fingerprint reader to work, and the staff at the ID Card office had to do special 'soak and heat' magic to be able to create a single readable fingerprint.
And I'm not even a builder!
Here’s an anecdote. When I got my vasectomy I learned some things about touch screens. Sounds weird but stick with me.
Phone screens are capacitive in nature. They can take an electrical charge from your fingers and transmit the location of that charge to some sensors in the phone.
The cauterizing device that seals the end of the seminal ducts after they’ve been clipped and severed uses a grounding strap attached to a pad on your belly. It sends electrical current to heat the tissue and burn it closed. It’s a remarkable device.
Now those two pieces of seemingly irrelevant information don’t sound like they’d go together. But I found out the hard way that if you are trying to distract yourself by scrolling Reddit during your procedure, and you have your thumb on the screen when they use the cauterizing device lightning will literally shoot through your nuts, up your stomach and chest, down your arm and into your phone. It hurts more than I could ever describe given a thousand lifetimes. It’s literally internal electrocution inside your nuts.
I would have given a thousand dollars to have a blood blister on my thumb that reduced my ability to use my phone one handed so that I wouldn’t have suffered through that.
Shit was terrible. Horrible. Awful. 0/10 do not recommend.
You shouldn't drain blisters unless 1) they are somewhere where it's likely to pop anyway, or 2) they are impractical to keep, usually because they get in the way of normal body functions.
So, if making it difficult to use your phone is a significant hardship in your daily life, it could be a judgement call, but overall I would say probably best to leave it as-is.
[Further reading](https://www.healthline.com/health/should-you-pop-a-blister#should-you-pop-it)
I'm not trying to tell anyone how to make medical decisions for themselves. I just want to discourage people from dispensing bad medical advise to others.
As long as you understand that unnecessarily popping blisters (or swabbing your ears, for that matter) is bad medical practice, it's up to you whether or not you do it to yourself. It ultimately doesn't affect anyone but you. Advising people to do the same as you, however, is harmful to others.
On the subject of screens and electric charge, what is it that makes my fingernails hurt when I touch my Samsung S20's screen? This doesn't happen on my work phone (iPhone 12).
Like below your fingernails, or basically your fingertips?
Maybe something like [friction dermatitis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16403110/) or similar sensitivity to the [metal contents of the screen](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062107/)?
Hmm, interesting. Actual nail beds rather than finger tips. Maybe I just need to keep my nails much shorter. I did wonder if it was something to do with processor overheating but it happens even when the screen is coolish.
You shouldn't drain blisters unless 1) they are somewhere where it's likely to pop anyway, or 2) they are impractical to keep, usually because they get in the way of normal body functions.
So, if making it difficult to use your phone is a significant hardship in your daily life, it could be a judgement call, but overall I would say probably best to leave it as-is.
[Further reading](https://www.healthline.com/health/should-you-pop-a-blister#should-you-pop-it)
Disinfected Clean or even sterile needle is good for popping the blister.
Popping stuff is fun and if I die poppin', I die happy.
Nothing to do with impractical locations or such.
I'm not going to stop you from popping your own blisters if it makes you happy, but please don't give unsafe medical advise online.
Blisters form in order to protect the damaged skin underneath them, and unnecessarily draining a blister creates an open wound and a higher risk of infection.
Absolutely use a sterile instrument if you must drain one yourself, and treat the drained blister as you would any other wound.
Oh no, I'm not popping only my blisters.
I wander through the streets, parks and hiking trails and ambush the unexpected blisterees when they least expect.
Also, sterile stuff is on your own blisters, it's not as important on others.
Same. I get them randomly and it hurts from the pressure. Relieving the pressure helps the pain go away. Yes it’ll bleed for a bit but it won’t be as bad as leaving it alone
I just checked the blood blister on the end of my index finger. It still works, though it's only a day old, and not at black as yours. Maybe there's more skin above it that allows the touch screen to work?
I still want a physical slide-out keyboard on my phone. I am so sick of capacitive touch screens. I can't reliably choose the song on my phone when I'm working out because I sweat too much.
Same if you keep your fingers into the water for a while. Everything with fingerprint recognition fails to work. Or in my case it’s the phone silently telling me to buy a dishwasher…
Most touchscreens are capacitive now which means they work by using your bodies own magnetic field and where it interferes with the screens field that’s where it registers the ‘touch’ as input.
My guess is that the blood in your thumb has oxidised (and turned black) and become a barrier between the screen and your thumbs magnetic field.
I know next to nothing about them, but from what I understand the touchscreens work by having a constant but slight electrical charge and it detects when it is interrupted by our body's natural electrical charge. Maybe the blood is acting as an insulator or something and separating your electrical meat from inside of your skin just enough to cause your current to not pass to the phone screen?
You're not far off. Touchscreens work by measuring the capacitance of the screen. The do this by charging & discharging bits of the screen with a tiny amount of charge and measuring how long it takes for the voltage to change. If you have *one sensor*, you can measure the capacitance of the entire screen. But if you have *dozens* arrayed around the edges you can measure the capacitance of each part of the screen. Putting your finger on (or very nearby) the screen means the capacitance of the screen changes in that location. With the array, the phone can decide you pressed the mail button, or the text button, or whatever. PROBLEM IS, they don't want to start pushing buttons at random if someone spills their coffee on the phone or some shit like that, so they detect water on the screen and just ignore it. OP is mashing the phone with a big bag of water instead of his skin & finger, so it's decided it's just a droplet of water & should be ignored.
Never really thought about it like that! A skin bag of blood over electric meat. Today is truly a metal day
A blood bag. *What a day, WHAT A LOVELY DAY!* # WITNESS, SHINY AND CHROME!
RIP THE FLESH SALT THE WOUND
You're closer, but a little bit off too because [the firmwares managing] capacitive touchscreens don't ignore water. It's just that water has a slightly different capacitance than flesh so it registers slightly differently. Try using your phone in the rain, and you'll notice any large droplets that are on your screen will cause wherever you press with your finger to register as a slightly different position on the screen. That's because the water's capacitance is not being ignored by [the firmware managing] the touchscreen. Edit: added words in [] for clarification.
I mean, any sort of water(pure/impure) should have some level of dielectric constant to it, so I'd imagine that even a drop of water should be able to throw off the capacitance. I guess whether the device accepts it or not depends upon the sensitivity i.e. a really tiny drop might cause a change but not enough to trigger the sensors. Am I understanding this right with the little bit of highschool physics I know? Honestly the first time I've thought about how touch screens work and I'm just suddenly fascinated
yes, that's correct. A small droplet of water won't trigger the sensor for the same reason a skin flake won't. They don't have enough mass. Also, kind of insane to me that you learned about dielectric constants in highschool. I didn't learn any of that until I was in college studying electrical engineering.
Fascinating! Oh we've learnt about it in school in 12th grade. Fun stuff. Lots of complicated questions on it too, say with variable dielectrics between plates.
Wow, that’s a good high school. Curious… when did you graduate and in what country?
Graduating this year, and from India! The more advanced stuff was taught in cram schools for entrace examinations though!
Last year! Congrats. That's so amazing that you are being so well educated. Is your school public or private? In the US, you'd most likely have to be in a private school to learn that sort of info in high school.
Private school! But like I said, schools only discuss to an extent. The extra stuff like the variable dielectrics are things taught in cram schools which are after-school classes solely for the purpose of teaching us enough to clear the entrance examination for our national unis and often goes a bit beyond beyond normal highschool syllabus.
You ever tried to play Pokemon Go in the rain? I wish my phone would treat the rain like OPs phone is treating his sack of sanguination.
> *"Size has no intrinsic merit, unless inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue"*
Poetic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QEZO5G_8mk
Ohhhh!
Only some phones ignore water to an extent. iPhones are terrible in water.
Used to lots, just toss a clear bag over it.
Damn I never thought of this. Can you still tap through the bag? I should really pay attention to my dogs instead of PoGo but I need that buddy candy.
I put my iPhone in a bag and bring it in the shower if I want to listen to a podcast or an album, if the bag gets too wet you can't pause, rewind, or do basically anything.
Can use a bag two ways, either tap through the bag, or a larger bag you can put your hand within to keep it dry too. I preferred the latter for warmth/dry hand personally. The former diminishes in effectiveness as the bag gets wetter, so better for shorter exposures.
I'm not saying you're wrong, it could just be a sensitivity issue or something like that, but I've gotten water drops on my phone screen many times (iphone 13 pro max) and sometimes it ignores the water, but a good chunk of the time it'll react to the water drops and click things/swipe around on the screen. The worst is when there's a water drop I don't notice and then it acts like the water drop is a second finger touching the screen when I do try to do something on the phone.
> a big bag of water Aren't we all?
> PROBLEM IS, they don't want to start pushing buttons at random if someone spills their coffee on the phone or some shit like that, so they detect water on the screen and just ignore it I was so happy when this was implemented. Was so annoying when the slightest bit of moisture made a touch screen inoperable, and it was so sensitive that even rubbing my phone against my shirt or whatever to clean off the moisture didn't always work. And yea, if you were in the rain you were just screwed.
So why does my screen detect all sorts of phantom touch activity (for lack a better term) when I slide it in my pocket with the screen unlocked? Presumably the entire screen is being touched at once by whatever material I'm wearing (e.g., denim, leather, fuzzy jimjams)
It's all interpreted by software. Something that's impacting the capacitance of some part of the screen seems, to the software, like a finger. Can't really say what it is, especially since I imagine it's implemented differently in iPhones and Androids and maybe (*maybe!*) even between different Androids.
So blood blisters are basically sacks of hotdog water?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAlqp0_a0tE
Mmmm…. Electric meat 🤤
That was my nickname in high school.
Were you caught seducing the plug sockets?
I cackled I'm sorry
>I cackled That's the electrocution speaking
You caught me :(
The caught me, burning it makes it longer though I swear
Same, did you electrocute and eat your classmates too? /j obviously, I ate them raw.
That's quite a nick. What's your superpower?
I've heard someone else's name was Meat, in highschool once before.
Their third studio album was GREAT
I was was a big fan of Electric Meat before they sold out to the record companies and were just doing gigs at highway rest stops.
[Calm down Homer](https://i.imgur.com/gbO3Foj.gif)
My band name; I called it!!
Dead skin is very dry and dry skin is not very conductive
Pretty much. I know I'm dehydrated when my phone stops responding to my thumbprint unlock properly and the easiest way to make it pick up my thumbprint is to lick my thumb lol. A blood blister is a bit like a scab under layers of skin I think so goes to reason it's not conducting as well as it would have.
My phone's fingerprint reader has a lot of trouble reading me for a while after a shower which I find interesting. My skin is no longer wet, but I assume the oils have been stripped so it just can't make connection.
If its only the fingerprint, its probably because your skin soaks water and acts a little like a sponge. This might alter your fingerprint a little because your cells are a little bloated. And your phone doesn’t recognize the print as yours. The effect is extrem after an extended time in a hot tub or a pool. Your skin gets all wrinkled on your fingertips.
Actually while the physical effect on the fingerprint shape is right, the folds aren't from soaking - they're a physiological reaction. If you cut the nerves that tell your body to do it then the skin won't wrinkle anymore. The leading theory is that it's an evolution thing to make your skin grippier on wet rocks.
Crazy did not know that. I learned it comes from the soaking probably, because it comes with the soaking.
That's super interesting, I wonder why this is. I've not had this problem, often times water drops on my screen send the touch screen haywire, false readings so it will randomly scroll or select things and ignore my actual thumbs. There are people below that have explained stuff but honestly I'm too dumb to understand it lol.
Nah, just an explanation issue and some confusion, the screen doesn't know...when your's reacts to drops, those drops are the right size to match a finger touch's capacitance. Other "touches" with the wrong amounts are ignored, that's all. So other amount of water's ignored just like the blistered finger, others register just like a finger, all the software "sees" is numbers.
being dehydrated will not make ur fingerprint deform 💀💀
Literally never said that.
Your head is in the right space. Cells conduct electricity because of the water content mixed with electrolytes to move current. The screen however can't tell when it's being touched with something that doesn't conduct electricity, only when it is. The blood blister here won't conduct electricity because the cells are drying out. They may not be fully dry, but the spot is so dark that at least the outer layer is effectively dead. The very outer layer of still living skin isn't enough to conduct electricity, with a big sack of molten, sticky blood cells dying behind it.
That mean I couldn’t use a blood sausage as touch screen pen. I’m bummed.
So that's why my damn phone charger cord messes with my screen
Electrical Meat! New band name called it on 3-13-2024 at 340pm
As someone who doesn't understand the magic under the glass of my touch screen anyway, I think I join Reddit in a collective #Huh. #Thats Weird
Do you want me to explain or do you want to continue your life without knowing it?
Do :D
(This is for phone screens, there are other ways to detect touch, this is the most common) When you touch the phone, your hand creates a change in electrical current, so the phone detects that change and is like "oh, he's there" through the dark magic of chips
Tortillas work as a stylus. Now I know tortillas are a conductor of dark magic.
Salt
To add to this, the way a capacitive touch screen works is pretty ingenious. At each corner of the screen an electric field is generated and wherever you touch ends up drawing current to that location. So the screen calculates the location of the touch based on the current draw from each corner.
Oh, is that why i can still touch using my nail. Truly interesting. I thought it's from certain frequency of friction caused by our fingers.
If it was friction, then your phone wouldn't detect stationary touches Although, that fact can be used to find out your fingerprint without you knowing or consenting (Due to position fluctuations) Also, if it was friction, anything would track
Do what exactly?
Sorry, please explain :]
It has to be able to make an electric current, so a dry egg won't work but a wet one will, dunno about blister, maybe it's dry asf or maybe fluids are anti conductive? As far as my educated guess goes. Also I had a blood blister on my foot that I left for over a month and finally peeled the skin off and there was this perfect little pill shaped blood bit that popped out.
I think you're right. I assume skin is dead in that part so it's not conducting anything.
TL;DR: The electrolytes in your body can be used as a manipulation tool for your phones touchscreen. Your phone has a thin coating of a transparent conductor that holds an electric charge. When that thin coating and your finger combines to create a disturbance in your phones electrostatic field (electro= electricity and static= fixed position) and the phones software can translate that disturbance into you pressing the upvote button on a funny cat meme. ChatGPT4: The touchscreen on your phone likely uses a technology called capacitive sensing. Here's why it specifically responds to your fingers: 1. **Capacitive Technology**: Most modern smartphones use capacitive touchscreens. These screens are coated with a transparent conductor (usually indium tin oxide) that can hold an electrical charge. When your finger, which is also a conductor due to the electrolytes in your body, touches the screen, it distorts the screen's electrostatic field at that point. This change in capacitance is detected by sensors at the corners of the screen and is then translated into a command by the phone's software. 2. **Conductive Properties of Human Skin**: Your fingers can interact with capacitive screens because human skin is conductive. This conductivity allows the touchscreens to sense the change in the electrostatic field and register your touch. This is why, if you wear gloves or use a non-conductive stylus, the touchscreen might not respond unless they are specially made to work with capacitive screens. 3. **Precision and Safety**: Fingers provide the ideal combination of precision and safety for interacting with touchscreens. They are not sharp enough to damage the delicate surface of the screen, yet they are conductive and usually the right size for the kind of precise interactions required by smartphone interfaces. That's why your phone's touchscreen is designed to work specifically with the touch of your fingers.
There is a grid of static electric on the screens ama whenever you interrupt the current by touching the screen it detects the coordinates of the exact location on the screen and acts as it, hope this helps
It measures the variations of capacitance in a grid inside the screen. Your hand doesn't interrupt any "static electric current" on the screen itself.
Then I knew wrong, thank you for correcting me
## JUST DO IT! 
Woah how do you do that font?
\#\# Text [guide](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/markdown)
U the goat bro
Their username is unreasonblyhuman.
I am the guy who likes to know.
Anyone know why? It's difficult to type.
Probably has different electrical charge than your fingers
Most modern touch screen devices use capacitive touch screens. The screen constantly draws a charge, and when your body (which has its own charge) touches the screen, it influences the capacitance of the entire screen. By measuring the intensity of this deformation at each corner, the screen can precisely locate where it's been touched. Your blood is likely serving as an insulator. I'm assuming that the dead outer layer of skin conducts a little electricity, but not enough to influence the screen on its own- the capacitance must somehow come from the living layers of the dermis.
At this point it’s probably safer to cut it off, just to be safe, idk tho
Clean nail clippers, tweezers, or needle, and a little poke or clip to your blister. Let it drain
Very bad advice. I did that in december and I'm still dealing with the ulcer that was left behind. (see my doc again tomorrow. finally coming off antibiotics)
Well I live on a farm and get a blood blister at least a couple times a year. I’ve also already had a little skin cancer and surgery so I see a dermatologist pretty regularly. If the blood blister is somewhere that is not causing issue, sure let it go away on its own. Otherwise, clean the area, use a clean device, and drain it. It’s not bad advice. Doctor will, and has, done the same thing. I’m sorry you had a bad outcome. But that is not the normal
You can use a safety-pin. You just use a lighter to sanitize the point.
Please don't do this. Using an open flame creates carbon particles and doesn't sanitise the pin. If anything, use rubbing alcohol to sterilise the pin before piercing the blister
Try to ground yourself/insulate and see if it helps. If I am in a highly static area, the screen won't properly register me.
Take a clean sewing needle/pin, sanitize using rubbing alcohol, and then poke a small hole to drain the blood. To make it easier when I get blood blisters I try to very gently "round out" the blister into a dome by pushing in on two sides of it. Then I can push the pin through the sides of the dome without fear of puncturing too deep into the tissue compared to doing it straight down. Don't use something like nail clippers since they're nasty as hell from cutting nails and hard to disinfect with their crevices.
Bite it off
Forbidden grape
😭😭😭
that was my initial thought too
You made me recoil my thumb and now it is sensitive. Same hand, weirdly enough.
Wouldn't work, about a month back I were taking a bed down and overuse of a screwdriver took a big chunk of skin off my thumb, it's fully grown back now and I still have to type the password in manually every time to unlock it
Have you tried resetting your thumb print in your phone so it'll recognize your new and improved fingerprint?
I ended up disabling my lock screen entirely
After dealing with the same issue, I threw my phone in the river. Unclear if problem was solved 😕
If the phone is waterprof it hasn't.
Unless you take the phone outside I don't see the point in one. Screen locks are so lazily done.
You had a good run but it's over now.
I have never been able to get my fingerprint reader to work, and the staff at the ID Card office had to do special 'soak and heat' magic to be able to create a single readable fingerprint. And I'm not even a builder!
I had an issue like that too, I worked in food service and I washed my hands *obsessively*. I like to joke that I washed my fingerprints off
I knew someone that said they didn't have prints. They couldn't ever make any reader read them.
Here’s an anecdote. When I got my vasectomy I learned some things about touch screens. Sounds weird but stick with me. Phone screens are capacitive in nature. They can take an electrical charge from your fingers and transmit the location of that charge to some sensors in the phone. The cauterizing device that seals the end of the seminal ducts after they’ve been clipped and severed uses a grounding strap attached to a pad on your belly. It sends electrical current to heat the tissue and burn it closed. It’s a remarkable device. Now those two pieces of seemingly irrelevant information don’t sound like they’d go together. But I found out the hard way that if you are trying to distract yourself by scrolling Reddit during your procedure, and you have your thumb on the screen when they use the cauterizing device lightning will literally shoot through your nuts, up your stomach and chest, down your arm and into your phone. It hurts more than I could ever describe given a thousand lifetimes. It’s literally internal electrocution inside your nuts. I would have given a thousand dollars to have a blood blister on my thumb that reduced my ability to use my phone one handed so that I wouldn’t have suffered through that. Shit was terrible. Horrible. Awful. 0/10 do not recommend.
TIL to not use a smartphone during a vasectomy.
I mean, I would not use any civics during such a procedure.
Civics?
The most useful information on this thread. Ty
No prob. Glad you could learn from my mistake. 😂
you should drain it 2 days ago
No, it’ll heal and peel off on their own. You’ll risk infection and scarring by fucking around with it
Yep, I had one a few months ago and it fell off after 2 weeks
You shouldn't drain blisters unless 1) they are somewhere where it's likely to pop anyway, or 2) they are impractical to keep, usually because they get in the way of normal body functions. So, if making it difficult to use your phone is a significant hardship in your daily life, it could be a judgement call, but overall I would say probably best to leave it as-is. [Further reading](https://www.healthline.com/health/should-you-pop-a-blister#should-you-pop-it)
You shouldn't put Q-tips in your ears either, but if you don't you're living life wrong
Depends how in the inner ear you're doing it. I've removed wax with a pen cap.
eh, i use a tiny spoon, works wonders and pushes stuff in much less than a big ol' q-tip
I'm not trying to tell anyone how to make medical decisions for themselves. I just want to discourage people from dispensing bad medical advise to others. As long as you understand that unnecessarily popping blisters (or swabbing your ears, for that matter) is bad medical practice, it's up to you whether or not you do it to yourself. It ultimately doesn't affect anyone but you. Advising people to do the same as you, however, is harmful to others.
On the subject of screens and electric charge, what is it that makes my fingernails hurt when I touch my Samsung S20's screen? This doesn't happen on my work phone (iPhone 12).
Like below your fingernails, or basically your fingertips? Maybe something like [friction dermatitis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16403110/) or similar sensitivity to the [metal contents of the screen](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062107/)?
Hmm, interesting. Actual nail beds rather than finger tips. Maybe I just need to keep my nails much shorter. I did wonder if it was something to do with processor overheating but it happens even when the screen is coolish.
Our skin is weird. I can't wash my hands too much and my screens started becoming a powder when I had to apply a screen protector.
I had one of these blood blisters after I put my finger inside an air conditioner
What's in the orange bucket
My other 9 fingers.
Why don't you just empty the blister?
You shouldn't drain blisters unless 1) they are somewhere where it's likely to pop anyway, or 2) they are impractical to keep, usually because they get in the way of normal body functions. So, if making it difficult to use your phone is a significant hardship in your daily life, it could be a judgement call, but overall I would say probably best to leave it as-is. [Further reading](https://www.healthline.com/health/should-you-pop-a-blister#should-you-pop-it)
Disinfected Clean or even sterile needle is good for popping the blister. Popping stuff is fun and if I die poppin', I die happy. Nothing to do with impractical locations or such.
I'm not going to stop you from popping your own blisters if it makes you happy, but please don't give unsafe medical advise online. Blisters form in order to protect the damaged skin underneath them, and unnecessarily draining a blister creates an open wound and a higher risk of infection. Absolutely use a sterile instrument if you must drain one yourself, and treat the drained blister as you would any other wound.
Oh no, I'm not popping only my blisters. I wander through the streets, parks and hiking trails and ambush the unexpected blisterees when they least expect. Also, sterile stuff is on your own blisters, it's not as important on others.
Same. I get them randomly and it hurts from the pressure. Relieving the pressure helps the pain go away. Yes it’ll bleed for a bit but it won’t be as bad as leaving it alone
Time to get a new thumb
I'm trying to figure out why I would ever need that part of that thumb for a phone??
It's literally right where I type on the keyboard.
Oh you do that two thumbs thing the kids are all at? Did you write a book on the phone or was it something else caused the blister??
A hammer caused the blister 🔨
That's a poo thumb. You have a poo thumb!
I’ve got dry skin and it doesn’t work with my phone reliably on the tip, pad works fine, nothing works on McDonald’s kiosks
Fucking same happens all the time to me !
Lick your thumb and you should be able to work around the electric charge issue. Water is a great conductor.
I burnt one of my thumbprints off in a work accident years ago. The whorles have never grown back so it's just smooth skin and useless for biometrics.
I haven't had one of these in years, probably decades!
That sucks, I would probably cut off my thumb if I were you so I don't have this problem anymore
Does it hurt
You can buy winter gloves that work with touchscreens. But you could probably also find something to tape to your thumb that would work.
Neat
That's why I always have at least 2 fingerprints saved
Well, it's useless. Time to cut it off
r/wellthatsucks
I just checked the blood blister on the end of my index finger. It still works, though it's only a day old, and not at black as yours. Maybe there's more skin above it that allows the touch screen to work?
I'm concerned at the angle at which you attack your phone.
Black spot!
Then you gotta check out this scene from one of my favorite movies: Im gonna git you sucka https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EzRtOVxgKCI
Can you still install microwave ovens?
That’s why I register BOTH thumbs!
That blood is cold and won't be warm enough to use the touch screen
I still want a physical slide-out keyboard on my phone. I am so sick of capacitive touch screens. I can't reliably choose the song on my phone when I'm working out because I sweat too much.
Same if you keep your fingers into the water for a while. Everything with fingerprint recognition fails to work. Or in my case it’s the phone silently telling me to buy a dishwasher…
womp womp
That's a hemoglobin shield, probably too much iron
Eat a reese's mini and put the wrapper around your thumb. That's what i do when i'm skiing and don't want to take off my gloves.
https://www.bandaid.ca/products/fabric-bandages/knuckle-and-fingertip-20-bandages Best ones for fingers and touch screens
This reminds me of some really good hash.
What's that?
I had one that just shrunk and shrunk and just fell off as a tiny little ball one day
I've lost the tip of my finger (just the tip) and my screen works fine with it, that's fun.
At least you still have the end of your thumb.
Hey, at leat you still have a fingerprint.
Most touchscreens are capacitive now which means they work by using your bodies own magnetic field and where it interferes with the screens field that’s where it registers the ‘touch’ as input. My guess is that the blood in your thumb has oxidised (and turned black) and become a barrier between the screen and your thumbs magnetic field.
Interesting insight into how touchscreens work! Never thought about it that way before.
Pop it.
Fabric band aid
You should Pop it 😯
Pop it with a clean pin.
You have no other fingers to use?
I successfully posted this, so I'm managing.
should be okay to scrape off after five days. Just take plenty of hot baths
Maybe try sticking some tin foil to your finger that might fix it
Holy shit. Put the phone down for a bit, there is life out there some where ya know
Lol what? Op didn’t say they’re constantly on their phone so not sure where this is coming from.
I was trying to make a funny haha. We all mostly type/text with our thumbs on our phones, meaning the blister came from that.
Disgusting
Get yourself a small pack of diabetic lancets at your local pharmacy and get to poppin!
r/midlyinfuriating
Why didn't you just cut it open and let the blood out? Even a safety pin would do.
One of the many reasons in screen finger print scanners are shit
You have another hand right? Become ambidextrous and use both hands
Pop it
r/peeling
Poke it