My 10 year old basically asked me this when I replaced his manual toothbrush with an electric one, and I had no answer. If a powered toothbrush does more brushes per second than a manual one then shouldn’t you have to bush your teeth for less time? Or if 2 minutes is recommended for the electric one then shouldn’t you need more time with a manual?
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Although the fluoride is important, the conditions necessary for fluoride to do its thing means that it’s more important to expose your teeth *often* rather than for a single long time.
The recommended 2 minutes is more about making sure that you brush *all* of your teeth for enough time to scrub off the plaque. Consider how you brush: you hit different “zones” in your mouth, focusing on a couple teeth at a time. Two minutes of brushing across your whole mouth works out to be only a little bit of brushing on each tooth.
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