> 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.
I'm certain that national geographic only exists in bathrooms. That's the reason we have a subscription. . . And my aunts and uncles and parents and cousins.
On shark tank, this couple had a product which was basically a sand timer for pooping. Some sharks didn't invest in it because they thought pooping was one of the few times people get peace and let them do what they want.
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.
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."
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 imagine, there was a person on #debian reading and taking a dump.
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 be more like FOMO on gossip, little substance.
I don't know about you guys, but I kept a stack of books in the bathroom. I managed to get through a lot of books two or three pages at a time. I don't even know why I stopped.
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.
And depending on the person it can also change depending on diet and mixing microbiomes. Back when I lived with roommates my frequency changed based on who I lived with to some extent, matching closer to their frequency without changing diet (since I was weight training my diet was controlled and I didn’t eat their food).
Now living permanently with a spouse it has settled on a higher frequency than I remember before moving out on my own. Weird stuff.
That's wild, my frequency has remained pretty consistent through my life, although I did have a couple years where somehow one of the days each week I'd do it would always be Monday, and I never had any explanation for why that was the case.
Not really a constipation but if out of nowhere I notice what I didn't #2 in a while what means I have a quite severe cold incoming - but yet without symptoms.
> one of the days each week I'd do it would always be Monday, and I never had any explanation for why that was the case.
Social functions, a specific food or beverages (Friday drinking night? Not to the Monday though...) on some days, travel for some.
I don't drink at all, and I honestly don't go out very much ever (including back them, probably very much related to the not drinking thing), so I wasn't consistently having the same thing to eat over the weekend. Interestingly, this did coincide with the period where I was going out to a specific event every Monday night, which is the only reason I remembered; I would be thrilled when it managed to come about during the workday rather than in the evening when I was out.
Sounds like I'm still in the range then! Interesting that it varies so much. I've heard some people say (or I guess imply) that they do it daily, and it's so different from my experience that I've always wondered which way is more "normal". I guess both are!
I think it's just "I don't want to just sit there." I don't have ADHD, but I do want to read more or less incessantly. Why should potty time be any different?
”Ei saa peittää” is forever imprinted in me! One of the first memes I think I came across growing up. I remember both kids and grownups spontaneously just saying it.
For many of us Swedes this was the one of the first and few Finnish sentences we ever learnt (it means ”Do not cover” and was printed on electric panel heaters in the bathroom).
This is called survivorship bias. Sure, we survived—but that’s because you’re not including all of the bored people who died of reading instruction labels.
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!
Backlabel threw together a fake product name from a list and added in some warning symbols and various ingredient and instructions to give you some fake labels to read while you whizz away.
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 reason we have declining birth rates is phones
US Live births per 1000 people from Macrotrends:
* 1960 - 22.70
* 1970 - 16.83
* 1980 - 14.99
* 1990 - 15.57
* 2000 - 14.18
* 2010 - 13.31
* 2020 - 11.99
* 2026 - 11.98
In the 30 years 1960 - 1990 which predate widespread adoption of mobile phones, we see a drop of ~7 live births per 1000 people.
In the 35 years since then (during which mobile phones have become ubiquitous) it has dropped by a further 3.5 live births per 1000 which is half the prior reduction.
If we look at US fertility rates the situation is even more dramatic. Births per woman:
* 1960 - 3.44
* 1970 - 2.34
* 1980 - 1.79
* 1990 - 1.96
* 2000 - 2.01
* 2010 - 1.98
* 2020 - 1.78
* 2026 - 1.79
The 30 years from 1960-1990 see a drop of almost 1.5 vs. a drop of about 0.2 in the 35 years since.
All of which is to say that the trend for declining birth rates predates mobile phone adoption, the biggest declines came prior to mobile phones being in widespread use. I've not researched the matter but my understanding is the primary drives in declining birth-rates are A) widespread availability of reliable birth control (the pill) and B)population wealth increases which tend to correlate quite strongly with the number of children a person has.
I don't discount phones having at least some impact, but seems highly unlikely that it's 'the' reason.
It starts with access to tv, movies, leisure travel, and disposable income.
These things take you out of the evolutionary algorithm. Boredom, uncertainty, low dopamine, mind not preoccupied = having children.
We identified this trend already in DINKs, it just turns out biology's adversarial algorithm is far more widespread than just that one demographic pattern.
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.
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.
Our peers in other countries can live with dirt floors, no climate control or running water, and tarp roofing. And they have no problem having kids. Until they get the smartphone (which is now starting to happen).
People have always had far less and had more children. The wealth you have now is a modern phenomenon and perhaps a bit of a flukish bubble.
Your own dopamine blindfold is a "minimum acceptable happiness threshold". It's distancing you from your underlying biology.
You don't have to live where you do. You don't have to send your kids to an expensive school. You don't have to buy expensive things, the latest fashion, the nicest car. You don't have to go to the expensive trips and festivals and restaurants. You don't have to keep up with the neighbors. You need very few things.
The dopamine loop put you there. Consumption, comparison, craving more. Algorithmically targeted.
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.
I would assume that they mean your great great grandparents benefited greatly by having kids because it brought in more labor while it mostly just cost food. These days there are tons of extra costs to having kids that didn't exist in the past and none of those costs are offset by their labors.
We’re reaching further into the past than great great grandparents to get to the large families for farming but sure. Calling it a “fine” to have kids is really bizarre framing though.
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 are not alone! Starting with Freud and the anal stage, many psychologists have concerned themselves and linking this not with sexual but with mortal aspect of the human condition
And yet the toilet is one of the most connected places in the house. I love this BBC "Thinking Allowed" podcast episode on toilets that makes the point powerfully:
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
Since I can remember I wonder why dogs do that but it had never occurred to me that that was the reason. What the hell. How many other _obvious_ things I've been blind my whole life
Are you trying to let people know you're a generator of superior fecal matter? If so, there's no need to apologize for it. Carry that stuff with pride.
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?
Sure, but the actual splash act just takes a minute at most, and usually about 10 seconds for me. I don't understand how you can have time to read anything.
You're getting your book dirty for what is, as far as I can understand, no real reason. Why not read your book after washing your hands? (If you have a severe chair shortage, then sure, I can sort of understand: sitting to read is pleasant.)
Ages ago, I let my partner borrow my first iPad after I'd upgraded. She'd take it into the bathroom. I never touched it because of that and I probably cleaned it when she gave it back to me.
Oh, thank you, what a lovely choice of text. I wonder if your parents meant for you to read it?
My sister mentioned to me recently she has a print of Wild Geese by Mary Oliver on the back of her bathroom door. Your quotation made me think of her poem.
Back in the day, old newspapers were used as toilet paper. It was a ceremony for my late cousin to cut the newspapers into blocks and neatly pack them in the outdoor toilet. You’d have a choice of some water from a bottle, and the old newspapers. A company of a few flies and no light. But when you went in there while the sun was out, reading whatever was on the cutouts was the obvious thing to do. Not just stare at the cracks in the wooden door in front of you.
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.
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.
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!
Another reset tip I've implemented to great success is to drive in complete silence. No music, no podcast, no radio.
This way, I've turned my daily commute into a kind of meditation practice.
At first, you'll think about a million random things, and the 20 minute commute turns into a 40 minute commute mentally. Often you'll zone out and replay argument, write essays in your head. But if you try to relax and concentrate, after a while, you'll start to be more present and notice pedestrians, weird signs, potholes, restaurant you've never paid attention to, different types of overpasses, etc.
Another fun exercise: every once in a while, I flip a coin and if it lands head, I'll allow myself to listen to music, and the music becomes a treat again rather than random background noise! It's great and I've added so many more songs to my playlist because I actually notice them
Even with adequate fiber and correct Asian positioning, it can take at least five minutes to empty. Granted, I won't use the phone if I need to focus during this time.
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.
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.
> it’s nasty … add fecal matter … you really think when you poop it just lands neatly in the bowl and nothing goes in the air?
Mine does, but I like to aim in the bowl. You’re not pooing in handstand pose, are you? No, wait, you’re right - just think - if you can smell it, you’re putting anus molecules directly in your nose. ;)
In all seriousness, thinking poop is in the air and getting on your phone is FUD. That’s not happening in detectable or meaningful amounts. If poop was in the air enough to get on your phone, then your phone would be the last of your worries, it would be everywhere, you’d already be breathing it, it would be on your face and clothes, it would be escaping the bathroom, and everyone everywhere would be sick. That’s not happening.
Touching bathroom surfaces is a bigger concern by orders of magnitude, and personal hygiene is much bigger than that by more orders of magnitude - the only thing you need to worry about in practice is what you touch and whether you wash your hands, and you can alleviate the majority of issues touching things by grabbing one square of TP to touch things with…
Don't use your phone while you poop if you're a phone addict like this person and their demographic, and you need to create an artificial excuse for you to stop constantly touching it.
I almost only use my phone when I poop, for flashcards. Guarantees me at least 5-10 minutes a day, and encourages me to relax (i.e. not strain) and not hurry the process. I might pick it up again at night when I'm getting tired to do more flashcards so I don't accidentally start something that will keep me up because I don't want to stop it in the middle.
So almost exclusively on the toilet and before bed (oh no!). My advice is don't smoke crack when you poop if you're a crackhead. In fact, any space you can open during which you are not smoking crack is good if you're a crackhead.
Also, sitting on the toilet doesn't give you hemorrhoids. Straining on the toilet gives you hemorrhoids. If your diet forces you to take a long time, you'll strain to hurry it up (or it may simply be unavoidable.) If you already have hemorrhoids, you'll take longer on the toilet (thereby associating long periods on the toilet with hemorrhoids.) Simply sitting on the toilet and letting things gently happen is not a bad thing, and also probably something that a person who is on their phone every minute of the day attending to beeps (and being filled with worry when it is not beeping) can't conceive of.
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.
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.
I bet there too was some obscure newspaper column that advised against that.
Yet, lo and behold, we survived!
> 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.
https://youtu.be/cXgg607wuis?t=35 (Breaking Bad 'Hank Figures it Out')
I'm certain that national geographic only exists in bathrooms. That's the reason we have a subscription. . . And my aunts and uncles and parents and cousins.
I've searched out this clip various times, gonna watch it again. Easily one of the best movie / TV moments since the advent of film.
I had legit forgotten that hank figures it out on the toilet.
Vince Gilligan truly made tv gold.
On shark tank, this couple had a product which was basically a sand timer for pooping. Some sharks didn't invest in it because they thought pooping was one of the few times people get peace and let them do what they want.
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.
Reading on the pot is a time-honoured tradition.
The Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri manual was a personal favorite of mine.
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.
My grammy had a curated bathroom library. Usually those "1000 Odd Facts" type of books that you could pickup and flip through.
Mine too. That and 'adult humor' joke books that were big in the 60s.
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."
It seemed like Reader's Digest magazine existed solely for this purpose, if you grew up in the 60s-70s. Better form factor too.
There should have been a specific edition for toilet reading called The Fart Side.
My extended family still has some old copies of Reader's Digest compilations hanging around the bathroom.
Edit: those books are basically the print version of reddit's front page of posts from r/interestingasfuck, r/todayilearned, r/MadeMeSmile etc.
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 imagine, there was a person on #debian reading and taking a dump.
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 be more like FOMO on gossip, little substance.
The Dr. Bronner's label rabbit hole was a common occurrence.
That's some crazy info on that soap bottle.
I don't know about you guys, but I kept a stack of books in the bathroom. I managed to get through a lot of books two or three pages at a time. I don't even know why I stopped.
Or those people who took magazines to the bathroom to read.
But they all took a back seat from the one thing that followed them around!
That is a real phenomena for a chunk of the population but I'm trying to understand what it is. Is it ADHD?
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 healthy range of frequency is roughly 3/day-0.3/day.
And depending on the person it can also change depending on diet and mixing microbiomes. Back when I lived with roommates my frequency changed based on who I lived with to some extent, matching closer to their frequency without changing diet (since I was weight training my diet was controlled and I didn’t eat their food).
Now living permanently with a spouse it has settled on a higher frequency than I remember before moving out on my own. Weird stuff.
That's wild, my frequency has remained pretty consistent through my life, although I did have a couple years where somehow one of the days each week I'd do it would always be Monday, and I never had any explanation for why that was the case.
Not really a constipation but if out of nowhere I notice what I didn't #2 in a while what means I have a quite severe cold incoming - but yet without symptoms.
> one of the days each week I'd do it would always be Monday, and I never had any explanation for why that was the case.
Social functions, a specific food or beverages (Friday drinking night? Not to the Monday though...) on some days, travel for some.
I don't drink at all, and I honestly don't go out very much ever (including back them, probably very much related to the not drinking thing), so I wasn't consistently having the same thing to eat over the weekend. Interestingly, this did coincide with the period where I was going out to a specific event every Monday night, which is the only reason I remembered; I would be thrilled when it managed to come about during the workday rather than in the evening when I was out.
Sounds like I'm still in the range then! Interesting that it varies so much. I've heard some people say (or I guess imply) that they do it daily, and it's so different from my experience that I've always wondered which way is more "normal". I guess both are!
you are full of shit /s
We all are, some of us just cycle it out more often
I think it's just "I don't want to just sit there." I don't have ADHD, but I do want to read more or less incessantly. Why should potty time be any different?
Not everything is ADHD.
I used to take news papers and magazines and sometimes still do. So yes it’s perfectly fine.
> Yet, lo and behold, we survived!
The article isn't claiming it'll kill you...
We learned Finish from the back of shampoo bottles.
Don’t forget the SEARS catalogue
Or National Geographic if you got sick of the Sears bra section
”Ei saa peittää” is forever imprinted in me! One of the first memes I think I came across growing up. I remember both kids and grownups spontaneously just saying it.
For many of us Swedes this was the one of the first and few Finnish sentences we ever learnt (it means ”Do not cover” and was printed on electric panel heaters in the bathroom).
https://xkcd.com/1227/
I am glad I'm not the only one. At least in France there were traditionally stacks of cartoons as well (and some magazines)
my family's main study there used to be the TV program which came in - hard to believe now - weekly printed magazines.
Stack of old magazines - readers digest etc
I totally still do this! The random nonsense and just lists of ingredients make me relaxed.
I read magazines or books.
> Yet, lo and behold, we survived!
This is called survivorship bias. Sure, we survived—but that’s because you’re not including all of the bored people who died of reading instruction labels.
Also in all sorts of languages. Czech, Slovak, Estonian, French, you name it. A gentle introduction into comparative linguistics :D
Oh yeah, I used to get a huge dopamine rush reading what was in my toothpaste.
Instagram feeds and not toothpaste tubes people.
That brings back so many good memories that were forgotten.
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!
I read about ancient greek mithology
pre-AI I recall a little gag website based on that in ~2013!
https://web.archive.org/web/20210612143916/http://backlabel....
Backlabel threw together a fake product name from a list and added in some warning symbols and various ingredient and instructions to give you some fake labels to read while you whizz away.
If pooping is the only time you spend away from your phone, you're not spending enough time away from your phone.
Right. I actually do the inverse of the OP's advice. As much as possible, pooping is the ONLY time I use the phone.
If the only time you budget for mindfulness is a couple minutes on the toilet, you're doing it wrong.
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.
You underestimate the amount of time I spend pooping.
I'm so full that I may have to run for public office.
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.
Ive read quite a bit, including one of my favorite articles, "It's probably the phones": https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/honestly-its-probably-the-phon...
But then you kind of dove into the deepend there. Spy devices, 1984, etc. I think a more tempered approach is useful here
> The reason we have declining birth rates is phones
US Live births per 1000 people from Macrotrends:
* 1960 - 22.70
* 1970 - 16.83
* 1980 - 14.99
* 1990 - 15.57
* 2000 - 14.18
* 2010 - 13.31
* 2020 - 11.99
* 2026 - 11.98
In the 30 years 1960 - 1990 which predate widespread adoption of mobile phones, we see a drop of ~7 live births per 1000 people.
In the 35 years since then (during which mobile phones have become ubiquitous) it has dropped by a further 3.5 live births per 1000 which is half the prior reduction.
If we look at US fertility rates the situation is even more dramatic. Births per woman:
* 1960 - 3.44
* 1970 - 2.34
* 1980 - 1.79
* 1990 - 1.96
* 2000 - 2.01
* 2010 - 1.98
* 2020 - 1.78
* 2026 - 1.79
The 30 years from 1960-1990 see a drop of almost 1.5 vs. a drop of about 0.2 in the 35 years since.
All of which is to say that the trend for declining birth rates predates mobile phone adoption, the biggest declines came prior to mobile phones being in widespread use. I've not researched the matter but my understanding is the primary drives in declining birth-rates are A) widespread availability of reliable birth control (the pill) and B)population wealth increases which tend to correlate quite strongly with the number of children a person has.
I don't discount phones having at least some impact, but seems highly unlikely that it's 'the' reason.
live births - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni... fertility rate - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
It's still dopamine. Dopamine + freedom.
It starts with access to tv, movies, leisure travel, and disposable income.
These things take you out of the evolutionary algorithm. Boredom, uncertainty, low dopamine, mind not preoccupied = having children.
We identified this trend already in DINKs, it just turns out biology's adversarial algorithm is far more widespread than just that one demographic pattern.
Smartphones are an accelerant.
Then they are a very poor one since they caused a decrease in the rate of decrease.
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.
Right it has nothing to do with pollution or endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment. Yeah its definitely phones.
It's really not. Nor is it phones.
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.
Real estate has little to do with this.
Our peers in other countries can live with dirt floors, no climate control or running water, and tarp roofing. And they have no problem having kids. Until they get the smartphone (which is now starting to happen).
People have always had far less and had more children. The wealth you have now is a modern phenomenon and perhaps a bit of a flukish bubble.
Your own dopamine blindfold is a "minimum acceptable happiness threshold". It's distancing you from your underlying biology.
You don't have to live where you do. You don't have to send your kids to an expensive school. You don't have to buy expensive things, the latest fashion, the nicest car. You don't have to go to the expensive trips and festivals and restaurants. You don't have to keep up with the neighbors. You need very few things.
The dopamine loop put you there. Consumption, comparison, craving more. Algorithmically targeted.
Then you're too young and fail to remember many things. Phones are very new, the decline in birthrate in the rich western economies is not.
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.
> Your great great grandparents didn't effectively get fined for having each child. It was quite the opposite.
What are you talking about?
I would assume that they mean your great great grandparents benefited greatly by having kids because it brought in more labor while it mostly just cost food. These days there are tons of extra costs to having kids that didn't exist in the past and none of those costs are offset by their labors.
We’re reaching further into the past than great great grandparents to get to the large families for farming but sure. Calling it a “fine” to have kids is really bizarre framing though.
Taking the UK as an example, legislation restricting the use of children under 14 in employment was only adopted in 1933. Previously it looked more like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_British_In...
The USA didn't change things up considerably until the 1930s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor_in_the_United_Stat...
Not soon after, obviously ww2 and then the baby boom after that. The role of children in families changed hugely in the 20th century.
The number of children per family has been plunging since 1800.
https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a...
Did they have phones back then?
Who read this while in the act?
I went directly to the comments like a true phone addict
Most upvoted comment in a long time. Probably.
Does taking a piss count?
Only if you're sitting down and lingering for 10 minutes...
you called me out
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.
We address the vulnerability by retreating to a private space. The phones come out just to address boredom. Sitting on the toilet is boring.
> 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.
Right. People spending 30 minutes sitting on the toilet are clearly not feeling all that vulnerable. But, yeah. Don’t do that.
You are not alone! Starting with Freud and the anal stage, many psychologists have concerned themselves and linking this not with sexual but with mortal aspect of the human condition
Yes, the only other closest parallel is maybe giving birth without reducing the intensity of an experience of child birth…
> pooping is this uniquely vulnerable, sensitive time for humans
GRRM chose that vulnerable moment to kill off a character.
And yet the toilet is one of the most connected places in the house. I love this BBC "Thinking Allowed" podcast episode on toilets that makes the point powerfully:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vgf4m
I remember Nintendo doing a commercial about that!
But there aren’t enough shampoo bottles to read.
that explains Dr Bronner's branding
There are dozens of us!
Yes yes I know this contains sodium laureth sulfate what else have you got?
Aqua and sodium chloride. Because saying water and salt doesn't sound posh enough, somehow.
No it is diversity.
The ingredients have to be understandable by non English speakers – so water is out.
As for salt which one?
Cocamidopropyl betaine is a must for me.
From an evolutionary perspective, this is a super vulnerable moment and are in a state of hyper vigilance.
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
TIL that in the past, I definitely would have died while pooping.
Odd that sloths spend their life in the trees except when they climb down to have a crap.
Eridians have figured out the solution for vulnerable moments: I watch, you shit.
Dogs also figured this out, and it goes both ways. This is why they stare at you when they're going, especially when they're puppies.
Since I can remember I wonder why dogs do that but it had never occurred to me that that was the reason. What the hell. How many other _obvious_ things I've been blind my whole life
Flip side: more sitting on the toilet ensures a more complete emptying and less rushing/straining.
Flip side: sitting too long on the toilet increases hemorrhoid risk. [0]
Not having a distraction doesn’t mean a person needs to strain.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12407481/
Long-time toiletsitter, here. No haemorrhoids.
Some people don’t die from cancer after smoking their whole lives either.
I can tell you're not going to like it if I light up next time I sit down to it.
Ah ol smoop
? What? A healthy colon and diet usually do not need to strain or rush. Just sit and poop. like 1min tops.
You need to get that dysentery tended to.
? Sorry? A healthy colon and diet it’s not liquid or messy. A nice type 4 normal solid log that slides on out.
I’m very scared for most people I see online discussing BMs. People have some seriously twisted up guts and diets.
Are you trying to let people know you're a generator of superior fecal matter? If so, there's no need to apologize for it. Carry that stuff with pride.
It seems we are unfamiliar with sarcasm.
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'm fine, enjoying my book.
Don't you think that if you have time to read your book then you don't really need to poop yet? Why not just wait until you're ready to go in?
Who says the readers are waiting while they sit? What's the rush out of there? Maybe this will make the concept easier for you to understand -
Restaurant: sit, eat, drink, chatter, coats, car, home.
Toilet: sit, splash, tinkle, read, wipe, wash, out.
Sure, but the actual splash act just takes a minute at most, and usually about 10 seconds for me. I don't understand how you can have time to read anything.
You're getting your book dirty for what is, as far as I can understand, no real reason. Why not read your book after washing your hands? (If you have a severe chair shortage, then sure, I can sort of understand: sitting to read is pleasant.)
It's worth clarifying, toilet-readers don't typically shit on their books.
Rocketman the Master Blaster, is that you?
Ages ago, I let my partner borrow my first iPad after I'd upgraded. She'd take it into the bathroom. I never touched it because of that and I probably cleaned it when she gave it back to me.
There's also showering. (But I've taken to playing music in the shower with a waterproof boombox. Bluetooth'd from my phone, of course.)
And of course, sleeping. ;)
But there is something to this. Intuitive ideas come to you in the quiet moments.
My parents had the Desiderata 'poem' on the back of the toilet door when I was growing up, so I read it a thousand times.
Being older and reading it again, it's a beautiful sentiment and something that, I think, seeped into my subconscious and made me a better person.
My favorite line:
"You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here"
https://www.desiderata.com/desiderata.html
Oh, thank you, what a lovely choice of text. I wonder if your parents meant for you to read it?
My sister mentioned to me recently she has a print of Wild Geese by Mary Oliver on the back of her bathroom door. Your quotation made me think of her poem.
https://allpoetry.com/poem/15374223-Wild-geese-by-Mary-J-Oli...
Back in the day, old newspapers were used as toilet paper. It was a ceremony for my late cousin to cut the newspapers into blocks and neatly pack them in the outdoor toilet. You’d have a choice of some water from a bottle, and the old newspapers. A company of a few flies and no light. But when you went in there while the sun was out, reading whatever was on the cutouts was the obvious thing to do. Not just stare at the cracks in the wooden door in front of you.
But then how would I take the photo I need to feed my AI-powered fecal analysis agent?
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.
I’m confused, doesn’t your toilet bowl already do that for you?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/despite-accessing-us...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
HN readership and comments would greatly decline if people did not usr their phones in the can.
I accomplish this brain offload in the shower. I’ve found some of my best solutions as shower thought.
My main take in this area is that reading HN/Reddit actively makes it harder to get the business done. Certain phone games seem way better.
My more general hypothesis is that generally reading interesting stuff is too engaging, and the brain needs to relax "just right".
If Hank had a Smartphone, Heisenberg would still be on the loose. What about reading poems?
Not just your phone. Don't read books or magazines or do other things.
Get in, take your dump, be done in max 6mins, get up. Don't strain.
6 mins? Maybe with a squatty potty and if I'm lucky. Otherwise it's almost always 15-25min for me, not sure why, it just takes time.
25 minutes on the toilet means you’re either sitting there doomscrolling or you need to do something about your digestion.
you need more fiber and/or water
Fiber is not always the solution. It can worsen sometimes.
thats where the water comes in!
it really is the solution in 99% of cases. The vast majority of people get nowhere near enough fiber
> be done in max 6mins
this has a very "tell me you haven't had kids yet without telling me" energy to it, in opinion at least.
Or, "tell me your family is bearable to be around without telling me."
evidently everyone assumes that kids mean you do the reading on the toilet whereas I meant 6 minutes is an eternity you will not be allowed to reach.
I assumed you meant parents and I was saying, "but also sometimes the kids!"
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.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8416428/
i think they meant they are purposely sandbagging while on the toilet to get some alone time
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.
Right! If you spend enough time in there to be reading you didn't actually need a shit.
When the bowel moves, let the mind move with it, and let nothing else abide.
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!
> there's probably microscopic fecal particles on every surface in there. And there's no way your phone is making it out unscathed.
Precisely the reason I stopped using phone in the toilet.
For those interested in some of the science behind the idea of “being bored is good”: the google-phrase you are looking for is “default mode network”.
I guess my diet/physiology must be different from y'all? I might be sitting down for 1 minute tops.
If you want a third reason, sitting too long gives you piles
That's the third reason given in the article (hemorrhoids == piles).
oops
There were (and still are?) bathroom reader books.
My parents leave copies of The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Nat Geo in their bathroom.
I think the biggest issue with phone (as well as book) is that it lets you sit on the bog for a prolonged time which is terrible for anal health.
This article has clearly forgotten the past.
People would read magazines, newspapers, nearby bottles of things, etc.
The phone part is irrelevant.
Ah, yes, the engagement-maximizing shampoo bottle ingredient list
The Sunday Times - all the news that is fit to print.
WTF, growing up I read and always kept a book or magazine in the restroom. I fail to see the difference.
I had all my dinosaur books always on the bathroom floor waiting.
On the other hand, it's the only time I have a few minutes to actually check my phone...
I have Stiftung Warentest Yearly Editions from 2020 to now there.
My guests stay for ages.
Another reset tip I've implemented to great success is to drive in complete silence. No music, no podcast, no radio.
This way, I've turned my daily commute into a kind of meditation practice.
At first, you'll think about a million random things, and the 20 minute commute turns into a 40 minute commute mentally. Often you'll zone out and replay argument, write essays in your head. But if you try to relax and concentrate, after a while, you'll start to be more present and notice pedestrians, weird signs, potholes, restaurant you've never paid attention to, different types of overpasses, etc.
Another fun exercise: every once in a while, I flip a coin and if it lands head, I'll allow myself to listen to music, and the music becomes a treat again rather than random background noise! It's great and I've added so many more songs to my playlist because I actually notice them
Yes I was pooping while reading this
Meanwhile Greeks .. "what's up buddy"
If you have time to read on the toilet, then (barring any disease or other disfunction) you’re not getting enough fiber.
It's one of the most tranquil parts of the day, and a time out from busier things. What's the rush?
Even with adequate fiber and correct Asian positioning, it can take at least five minutes to empty. Granted, I won't use the phone if I need to focus during this time.
How else will I read HN?
what if i end up daydreamin?
God forbid a thought might form!
Sitting on the toilet reading this post gives it a whole different feel.
Literally read this on the toilet. Thanks!
Also raise your feet.
oh boy... how about you don't do it.
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.
[1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scrolless-feed-blocker/id67588...
i’ve never understood this. how long does it take people to poo that they need to bring something to do?!
Bathroom readers are a staple here.
The bathroom is the modern day phone booth. Its the perfect place to read hacker news’s first page.
...but then when will I do my Duolingo?
"Oh! I'm so sorry I must have missed it when you got your PhD in defecation."
Please sanitize your phone's back side each weekend. 70% ethanol or isopropyl alcohol works reasonably, although it won't kill everything.
What has Hacker News come to… sigh..
Obvious, and yet will be ignored
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.
Is it really possible that yours splatters as much as that? Couldn't you wear a polythene kilt?
> it’s nasty … add fecal matter … you really think when you poop it just lands neatly in the bowl and nothing goes in the air?
Mine does, but I like to aim in the bowl. You’re not pooing in handstand pose, are you? No, wait, you’re right - just think - if you can smell it, you’re putting anus molecules directly in your nose. ;)
In all seriousness, thinking poop is in the air and getting on your phone is FUD. That’s not happening in detectable or meaningful amounts. If poop was in the air enough to get on your phone, then your phone would be the last of your worries, it would be everywhere, you’d already be breathing it, it would be on your face and clothes, it would be escaping the bathroom, and everyone everywhere would be sick. That’s not happening.
Touching bathroom surfaces is a bigger concern by orders of magnitude, and personal hygiene is much bigger than that by more orders of magnitude - the only thing you need to worry about in practice is what you touch and whether you wash your hands, and you can alleviate the majority of issues touching things by grabbing one square of TP to touch things with…
I have an AI agent that poops for me and just reports the results.
ShatGPT?
Don't use your phone while you poop if you're a phone addict like this person and their demographic, and you need to create an artificial excuse for you to stop constantly touching it.
I almost only use my phone when I poop, for flashcards. Guarantees me at least 5-10 minutes a day, and encourages me to relax (i.e. not strain) and not hurry the process. I might pick it up again at night when I'm getting tired to do more flashcards so I don't accidentally start something that will keep me up because I don't want to stop it in the middle.
So almost exclusively on the toilet and before bed (oh no!). My advice is don't smoke crack when you poop if you're a crackhead. In fact, any space you can open during which you are not smoking crack is good if you're a crackhead.
Also, sitting on the toilet doesn't give you hemorrhoids. Straining on the toilet gives you hemorrhoids. If your diet forces you to take a long time, you'll strain to hurry it up (or it may simply be unavoidable.) If you already have hemorrhoids, you'll take longer on the toilet (thereby associating long periods on the toilet with hemorrhoids.) Simply sitting on the toilet and letting things gently happen is not a bad thing, and also probably something that a person who is on their phone every minute of the day attending to beeps (and being filled with worry when it is not beeping) can't conceive of.
Oh shit
lol, great closing line
This must be GenX version of boomers "you are poor because you buy coffees". I need my phone for work, not because of some addictive distraction.
I do not do meditative "quiet reflection" on shitty toilet, I have nice space for that!
Using your phone to do work even in the bathroom is a strange brag
"You need to be bored" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orQKfIXMiA8
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.