Let’s face it, most of us do it sometimes; some of us do it often. There’s just something about scrolling on the toilet that makes it so satisfying.
In our modern life, moments of peace and quiet are few and far between, and it’s so tempting to just turn on your phone on the toilet. But what starts as a quick check of email or DMs often turns into a rabbit hole of news and social media. Before you know it, ten, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes have vanished. You’ve been sitting there in the digital glow long after your body’s business was concluded.
That’s a bit annoying. But according to a new study from a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School, this habit may even be contributing to a painful and surprisingly common medical condition: hemorrhoids
According to the study, people who use their smartphones on the toilet have a 46% increased risk of developing hemorrhoids.
Yet Another Smartphone Problem?
The study was conducted at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston among adult patients scheduled for screening colonoscopies. This provided the researchers with a golden opportunity: they could survey patients about their bathroom habits and then get a direct, medically confirmed look at whether hemorrhoids were present.
The researchers conducted the first multivariate analysis that isolates smartphone use as a significant risk factor. The findings suggest that our ubiquitous pocket computers might be changing yet another relationship with one of life’s most basic functions — and not for the better.
The results were striking. A significant majority (66% of all respondents) admitted to using their smartphones while on the toilet. This wasn’t just a quick glance. People were lingering on their phones, with 37.3% of people reporting spending over 5 minutes on the toilet. Some sat for more than 15 minutes.
This extended time, the researchers argue, is the real culprit.
For decades, doctors have cautioned against prolonged sitting on the toilet. It used to be newspapers or a book, but the endless stream of stimulating content on our phones has proven to be a far more captivating toilet distraction.
So, why is sitting on a toilet different from sitting in an office chair?
The study’s authors propose a clear mechanical explanation. When you sit on a regular chair, your buttocks and thighs provide support for your pelvic floor. A toilet seat, however, is essentially a hole. Without that support, the perineal region descends, and the force of gravity, combined with the relaxed state of the pelvic muscles, puts “prolonged and direct pressure” on the veins in the rectum and anus.
These veins, known as hemorrhoidal cushions, are a normal part of our anatomy. But when they are subjected to sustained pressure, they can become engorged, swollen, and inflamed. This is what we call hemorrhoids.
More Than Just a Pain in the Rear
The fact that more time on the toilet isn’t good for you isn’t a surprise. However, the study challenged a long-held belief that straining during a bowel movement is the primary cause of hemorrhoids. In this group of patients, after adjusting for factors like age, BMI, sex, and exercise, straining was not an independent predictor of hemorrhoids. The single most important behavioral factor that emerged was the simple, passive act of sitting there for too long, distracted by a screen. Time, not force, appears to be the enemy of our buttocks.
Most smartphone users seemed unaware of the connection. Only 35% of users acknowledged that their phone actually caused them to spend more time there. This suggests the time extension is often an “inadvertent and unintended consequence” of becoming absorbed in digital content. The activities driving this distraction are familiar to us all: 54.3% were reading news, and 44.4% were scrolling through social media.
While often the subject of bad jokes, hemorrhoids are a serious public health issue. They are the third most common outpatient gastrointestinal diagnosis in the United States, responsible for nearly 4 million office and emergency room visits annually and costing the healthcare system over $800 million each year. More people seek medical care for hemorrhoids than for colon cancer or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and while it’s often not as serious of a diagnosis as IBS, it can be a serious source of discomfort and a serious health issue.
Concerns and Caveats
Researchers strongly suspected that smartphones may be linked to developing hemorrhoids, but this is the first research to use rigorous statistical methods to tie the modern habit of smartphone use directly to the condition.
The researchers also uncovered other patterns. Smartphone users on the toilet tended to be younger than non-users, with a mean age of 55 compared to 62. The numbers could be even higher in lower ages that weren’t well represented in the study. Furthermore, the phone-using group was found to be more sedentary in general, engaging in significantly less physical activity than their non-using peers. This aligns with broader research linking high smartphone engagement with less active lifestyles.
Of course, the study has its limitations. It’s a cross-sectional study, which means one of those “we show correlation not causation” studies. It’s possible, for instance, that people with existing bowel discomfort spend more time on the toilet and thus are more likely to use their phones to pass the time. However, the study found no significant differences in diagnoses like IBS or functional constipation between the two groups. The study also relied on self-reported data for habits like time spent and straining, which can be subject to recall bias. Finally, the participants were all adults aged 45 and older undergoing screening colonoscopies, so they may not perfectly represent the general population.
Despite these caveats, the evidence is compelling and provides a clear, actionable public health message. This research bolsters the clinical advice to limit time on the toilet to under five minutes.
The study was published in PLoS.
