Yes… and no… it depends. It may not sound like a very professional introduction, and it definitely doesn’t answer the question in the title, but it’s about as accurate and as assertive as you can be on this topic. For decades, a large number of electric toothbrush options have been seen on the market, some are rotary, others are oscillatory, others massage, others have horizontal movements, some make several of these movements and others do all of them and more, in their advertisements they are promoted as solutions to dental problems, such as plaque control, gum inflammation, cavity prevention, which are not achieved with manual brushes, they are faster and more comfortable. The reality is that everything is relative. No brush, manual or electric, is efficient on its own, the type of bristles, the type of toothpaste, the brushing technique, the frequency, the type of patient, are definitely more important in controlling oral hygiene than if the brush uses batteries or not. Definitely if a patient suffers from a syndrome, disease or condition that limits their movements, an electric toothbrush will be more effective than a manual one, however, if a healthy patient without systemic complications uses the same electric toothbrush as the aforementioned patient, and If you do it with poor technique, excessive force, or for less time than required «because advertising says it’s faster,» you’ll end up causing more problems than solving or preventing them. In a joint study by researchers from the United States, Canada, and Germany, Drs. Julie Grender, C. Ram Goyal, Jimmy Qaqish, and Ralf Adam published in the International Dental Journal, in April 2020, compare the effect on plaque control and gingivitis in adult patients using manual and electric brushes for 8 weeks, having control and maintaining a very precise monitoring of brushing techniques, concluded that electric brushes are indeed more effective in plaque control and gingivitis than manual brushes from even the first brushing and continuing during the 8 weeks of the study, however, the difference, although noticeable, required constant monitoring, refinement, and supervision of the brushing techniques used in each group. While in the control groups, where there was no monitoring of brushing techniques, there was no change in plaque control or improvement in gingivitis in patients with manual brushes, while a significant increase in gum inflammation and bleeding was observed in patients who used electric toothbrushes. So, electric toothbrushes?… Yes, and no… it depends. Yes, they can work very well and help in specific cases, in specific patients with special conditions and in patients who follow the brushing techniques indicated by their treating dentist to the letter. No, in cases where patients do not follow the required brushing techniques, brush for less time, or neglect their brushing habits, giving more confidence to the movements of the electric toothbrush than they should.