I used to take my laptop or Nokia N810 (remote shell over Wi-Fi with physical keyboard) with me to the bathroom. Nowadays there's cyberdecks, e-readers, ...
Just to reiterate: book good, e-reader bad. Phone good, smartphone bad. Scanning through a physical magazine good, doomscrolling TikTok bad.
Except it is about focused vs. diffuse mode of brain, and usually people underappreciate the latter. E.g. walking during a lunch break, thereby getting inspiration for work, is working. The same can be true for taking a shower, sporting, staring outside at the landscape or stars, or meditating. It will also empower your focused mode later on. And, the author's point seems to be a toilet break is a decent opportunity for this. I agree. On my previous job, I regularly sat for 10-15 min in late morning, and it inspired me. But you cannot force people to not take a device with them to toilet. I mean, unless you're working for NSA or something. Don't judge such, look at total performance / efficiency per hour instead. Or per USD spend on the employee.
As a former smoker, this is also what I appreciated about having a fag (in a time before smartphone and vape were common). Some missed the socializing. I hated that part. It seemed to br more like FOMO on gossip.
My family had dedicated bathroom reading that sat on the top of every toilet cistern. Usually something like a Far Side comic collection or an "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader."
> Back when we lived without phones, we used to read instruction labels on all and any household cleaning products that were stored in the bathroom.
Wow, I forgot that I used to do this! And I'd puzzle over whether any ozone was left with all the CFCs being emitted.
But yes, the OP is very edgy take that totally ignores the existence of book/magazine baskets next to toilets. It's a huge plot point in Breaking Bad, for example.
Personally, I just took a book in with me. (I thought everyone did, but apparently not.)
Many share houses, when I was a student, put the film calendar for the local art house cinema on the back of the toilet door. It was the accepted place for it.
Heh yeah, as a kid/young adult I also stored all my strategy game manuals in the bathroom, back when they used to contain actual information and helpful stuff.
It might also have to do with how long someone tends to take. I tend to have a pretty slow metabolism and only need to defecate a couple times a week (to preempt any armchair diagnoses from people who think this is weirdly infrequent, every doctor I've had has always said this isn't a huge deal), so when I do, it tends to be in larger amounts. I've also found that it's better for me to take it slow and not strain as much, so sometimes I end up being on the toilet for more than just a couple minutes, which means that having something to do is nice.
That said, I do also have ADHD, so maybe people who are "longer and slower" toiler-sitters like me without ADHD might be fine without a distraction.
The Dutch have a birthday calendar in the toilet room. And you can use the inspection shelf of the toilet to check for problems in your diet. Plenty of activities to do!
Same, on the golden throne is where 98% of my phone time is being spent, the other 2% is having to hold up the phone towards my hear to do that annoying "talk to another human being" thing. Otherwise during a normal day I barely touch my phone.
The reason we have declining birth rates is phones.
It's not the economy. People have overwhelmingly been historically poor. Our ancestors ate rotting and festering meat and they had plenty of kids. Your great great grandparents went through some shit. HN community demographics are the exception to the rule.
The problem is every man and woman is sucked into a phone. They're never bored. There's no need to plan for long term fulfillment in another person. Always just more dopamine. Settling down isn't good because we're trained on short form gratification loops.
The spy devices enforce conformance too. Nobody takes risks and parties. Looking foolish will be shared and shamed. People get sucked into these closed off hyper critical portals where everyone sees a highlight reel, questions themselves, and adapts to the performance culture status quo.
This is worse than either Brave New World or 1984.
It's an almost fitting handoff that our species goes into decline as the robots begin to take over. Our species can't be just scaffolding right? We're kind of doing our best to prove that we are.
"The sad fact is, human civilization did not even break for lunch when humankind died out."
"Interstellar colonization is easy! You just need to devote a visible percentage of the resources of an entire interplanetary civilization to it for several hundred years, placing it in the tireless and efficient hands of robots ordered to strive for the goal for as long as it takes. Perhaps the real story behind our Creators’ extinction isn’t some dismal concoction of demographic undershoot, decadence, distraction by sexual hyperstimuli, and a little bit of malice on the side; but rather, they decided they might as well take a nap while the boring business of galactic conquest unfolded on their behalf—secure in the knowledge that the robots would resurrect them in time to benefit from the enterprise."
Trained on short form gratification loops? Just the opposite. They're the path of least resistance. It was thermodynamically inevitable that short form content would dominate.
Your great great grandparents didn't effectively get fined for having each child. It was quite the opposite.
You make some really good points, but I feel they are a result of a greed-pilled, mean-spirited and individualistic-to-the-point-of-self-harm culture we're all sadly living under rather than the underlying cause.
Real estate is too expensive and rent is too high and people don't want to raise a family in a tiny apartment where both people have to work long hours. Combined with the fear TV sold to people such that they have to hover over their children 24/7 for most of their lives.
Pooping is interesting. Having a toddler reminded me how pooping is this uniquely vulnerable, sensitive time for humans. I think a lot of us use books/phones/etc to distract ourselves from a sensorily intense activity. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just noting it.
I will say that playing my Nintendo DS on the toilet many years ago gave me hemorrhoids that still persist decades later. Don't camp on the toilet.
You want to train kids from a young age not to spend a long time on the toilet, which reading encourages. It consistently leads to hemorrhoids. That's just a fact.
> You want to train kids from a young age not to spend a long time on the toilet, which reading encourages. It consistently leads to hemorrhoids. That's just a fact.
Whoa, you can preach whatever you'd like, but let's not start inventing 'facts' to put down others.
I don't see 'time sitting on the stool' in our list of hemorrhoid risk factors. If, instead, you mean time straining at the stool, then yes: but the straining begets the reading activities, not the other way around.
then it is even worse than I feared! they are both worsening or increasing their own chances of hemorrhoids AND role modeling for their kids that spending a long time on the toilet is OK.
Yeah, exactly this. Once you have a toddler you realize there is an inherent desire to be alone while pooping. There is a sort of shame about this. Always Sunny made a joke about this: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TFqzjdk5XPs
Everyone's gut is different, but one minute isn't unreasonably short, especially if you have something like a bidet for fast cleaning afterwards. Are you sure you're not constipated?
I don't believe in planning when to stare at the wall. I just do it when I feel like it - whenever - sometimes family members are around. Be reasonably spontaneous - you'll calibrate on you're own. Don't be afraid. Breathe, baby!
This is the thing I've become increasingly radicalized about. I built an app (link below if you're curious, it's $5 [1]) to cure my particular brand of phone addiction.
I've been using my phone for probably ~1hr per day for the last 6 months and I've realized how many ills of our society today can be traced back to phones and social media. Political polarization, misinformation, mental illness, the loneliness epidemic, brain-rot - we'd be in a very different place if we could moderate our use of this technology more.
The thing I've come to realize is that when I look at my phone it's so boring now, and that's how it should be.
Pro tip: send the photo to spammy overseas recruiters, bonus if you add the photo in a .docx with a password. then when they call you asking for the password, tell them over the phone so you can hear their reaction when they see it.
Also, it's nasty. Check out how dirty your phone already is, then add fecal matter to that (you really think when you poop it just lands neatly in the bowl and nothing goes into the air?)
Surely whatever is aerosolised gets over your body and clothing too - so your phone would be less dirty than the rest of you, except the parts you washed with soap.
Would be interesting to see a study on this, not my instinct is mobile phone use whilst sitting on the toilet doesn't increase germ exposure in any measurable way.
This is harder than ever - I've always got the urge (no pun intended to the original post) to start a new worktree, keep the agents unblocked, or write down a new idea.
I've started going on silent drives to help - 2 lane roads for an hour or so, just staring ahead and thinking about nothing and everything. I'll reward myself with a podcast on the way back from wherever my "could be anywhere" destination is.
I bet there too was some obscure newspaper column that advised against that.
Yet, lo and behold, we survived!
Just to reiterate: book good, e-reader bad. Phone good, smartphone bad. Scanning through a physical magazine good, doomscrolling TikTok bad.
Except it is about focused vs. diffuse mode of brain, and usually people underappreciate the latter. E.g. walking during a lunch break, thereby getting inspiration for work, is working. The same can be true for taking a shower, sporting, staring outside at the landscape or stars, or meditating. It will also empower your focused mode later on. And, the author's point seems to be a toilet break is a decent opportunity for this. I agree. On my previous job, I regularly sat for 10-15 min in late morning, and it inspired me. But you cannot force people to not take a device with them to toilet. I mean, unless you're working for NSA or something. Don't judge such, look at total performance / efficiency per hour instead. Or per USD spend on the employee.
As a former smoker, this is also what I appreciated about having a fag (in a time before smartphone and vape were common). Some missed the socializing. I hated that part. It seemed to br more like FOMO on gossip.
Wow, I forgot that I used to do this! And I'd puzzle over whether any ozone was left with all the CFCs being emitted.
But yes, the OP is very edgy take that totally ignores the existence of book/magazine baskets next to toilets. It's a huge plot point in Breaking Bad, for example.
https://youtu.be/cXgg607wuis?t=35 (Breaking Bad 'Hank Figures it Out')
Many share houses, when I was a student, put the film calendar for the local art house cinema on the back of the toilet door. It was the accepted place for it.
Reading on the pot is a time-honoured tradition.
That said, I do also have ADHD, so maybe people who are "longer and slower" toiler-sitters like me without ADHD might be fine without a distraction.
If the only time you budget for mindfulness is a couple minutes on the toilet, you're doing it wrong.
It's not the economy. People have overwhelmingly been historically poor. Our ancestors ate rotting and festering meat and they had plenty of kids. Your great great grandparents went through some shit. HN community demographics are the exception to the rule.
The problem is every man and woman is sucked into a phone. They're never bored. There's no need to plan for long term fulfillment in another person. Always just more dopamine. Settling down isn't good because we're trained on short form gratification loops.
The spy devices enforce conformance too. Nobody takes risks and parties. Looking foolish will be shared and shamed. People get sucked into these closed off hyper critical portals where everyone sees a highlight reel, questions themselves, and adapts to the performance culture status quo.
This is worse than either Brave New World or 1984.
It's an almost fitting handoff that our species goes into decline as the robots begin to take over. Our species can't be just scaffolding right? We're kind of doing our best to prove that we are.
"Interstellar colonization is easy! You just need to devote a visible percentage of the resources of an entire interplanetary civilization to it for several hundred years, placing it in the tireless and efficient hands of robots ordered to strive for the goal for as long as it takes. Perhaps the real story behind our Creators’ extinction isn’t some dismal concoction of demographic undershoot, decadence, distraction by sexual hyperstimuli, and a little bit of malice on the side; but rather, they decided they might as well take a nap while the boring business of galactic conquest unfolded on their behalf—secure in the knowledge that the robots would resurrect them in time to benefit from the enterprise."
-Charles Stross (Saturn's Children)
But then you kind of dove into the deepend there. Spy devices, 1984, etc. I think a more tempered approach is useful here
You make some really good points, but I feel they are a result of a greed-pilled, mean-spirited and individualistic-to-the-point-of-self-harm culture we're all sadly living under rather than the underlying cause.
Real estate is too expensive and rent is too high and people don't want to raise a family in a tiny apartment where both people have to work long hours. Combined with the fear TV sold to people such that they have to hover over their children 24/7 for most of their lives.
I will say that playing my Nintendo DS on the toilet many years ago gave me hemorrhoids that still persist decades later. Don't camp on the toilet.
GRRM chose that vulnerable moment to kill off a character.
Precisely the reason I stopped using phone in the toilet.
The ingredients have to be understandable by non English speakers – so water is out.
As for salt which one?
Get in, take your dump, be done in max 6mins, get up. Don't strain.
this has a very "tell me you haven't had kids yet without telling me" energy to it, in opinion at least.
Whoa, you can preach whatever you'd like, but let's not start inventing 'facts' to put down others.
I don't see 'time sitting on the stool' in our list of hemorrhoid risk factors. If, instead, you mean time straining at the stool, then yes: but the straining begets the reading activities, not the other way around.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8416428/
And of course, sleeping. ;)
But there is something to this. Intuitive ideas come to you in the quiet moments.
Not having a distraction doesn’t mean a person needs to strain.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12407481/
I’m very scared for most people I see online discussing BMs. People have some seriously twisted up guts and diets.
I've been using my phone for probably ~1hr per day for the last 6 months and I've realized how many ills of our society today can be traced back to phones and social media. Political polarization, misinformation, mental illness, the loneliness epidemic, brain-rot - we'd be in a very different place if we could moderate our use of this technology more.
The thing I've come to realize is that when I look at my phone it's so boring now, and that's how it should be.
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scrolless-feed-blocker/id67588...
People would read magazines, newspapers, nearby bottles of things, etc.
The phone part is irrelevant.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/despite-accessing-us...
Also, it's nasty. Check out how dirty your phone already is, then add fecal matter to that (you really think when you poop it just lands neatly in the bowl and nothing goes into the air?)
Would be interesting to see a study on this, not my instinct is mobile phone use whilst sitting on the toilet doesn't increase germ exposure in any measurable way.
I do not do meditative "quiet reflection" on shitty toilet, I have nice space for that!
This is harder than ever - I've always got the urge (no pun intended to the original post) to start a new worktree, keep the agents unblocked, or write down a new idea.
I've started going on silent drives to help - 2 lane roads for an hour or so, just staring ahead and thinking about nothing and everything. I'll reward myself with a podcast on the way back from wherever my "could be anywhere" destination is.