Wow you're like the archetypal preferred corporate consumer. 100% voluntary opt in to being completely dependent on specific corporate products.

> Also, a big reason to avoid cash is that you never know who was its previous owner, and whether they washed their hands.

This is silly. By this same reasoning you should never touch a door handle in public.

That's correct. You should never touch a public door handle with your bare hands. And often you don't have to. Many doors would be opened for you if you just pushed them, and some would even open themselves on their own if they saw that you wanted to get through. But, hold on, let me blow your mind even further: you should also never eat food that fell on the ground, even if it was less than 3 seconds.

> That's correct. You should never touch a public door handle with your bare hands.

Honestly that's a miserable way to live life IMO, being afraid to that extent.

How old are you if you don't mind sharing? I'm wondering to what extent COVID may have impacted the development of your views here.

> let me blow your mind even further: you should also never eat food that fell on the ground,

Yeah, not really comparable to opening a door lol

> Honestly that's a miserable way to live life IMO, being afraid to that extent.

I know right. Ignorance is bliss.

> How old are you if you don't mind sharing? I'm wondering to what extent COVID may have impacted the development of your views here.

I'm 19, but no worries, when COVID happened I was not affected because I rarely went outside.

> I know right. Ignorance is bliss.

No ignorance here, quite the opposite. When you realize how low the odds are of the worst case scenarios you use to justify your behavior and do a cost/benefit analysis you'll find it isn't in favor of that level of mild paranoia.

> I'm 19, but no worries, when COVID happened I was not affected

Being afraid to touch door handles in public and being as attached to a smartphone as you are would indicate the pandemic did indeed affect your development. The question is to what extent is your development typical.

Even if you ignore the potential implications to your health, realising that dozens of homeless drug addicts touch that very same door handle every day justifies a small detour to find a better door, or at the very least using your sleeve to avoid direct contact. Also, I did leave my phone in the house when taking out trashes, so can’t say I’m that attached.

> Even if you ignore the potential implications to your health, realising that dozens of homeless drug addicts touch that very same door handle every day justifies a small detour to find a better door, or at the very least using your sleeve to avoid direct contact.

I'm not going to argue about door handles, I'm just going to point out this is objectively not normal, as in common, behavior - and that you think this does seem to have been due to you growing up while COVID was a threat.

> Also, I did leave my phone in the house when taking out trashes, so can’t say I’m that attached.

That might be setting the bar unreasonably low.

> I'm 19…

Say no more