A modern-day Bertie seated on the ceramic throne doomscrolls for some instantaneous gratification. A dashed mistake, it turns out. A medical report flashes on his smartphone screen. Using a smartphone while on the toilet is associated with a higher risk of haemorrhoids, reads the headline.
Bertie’s eyes remained glued to the report prepared by researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston as 10 minutes turned 20 and 20 became 30. By the half-hour mark, Jeeves knocked and, through a slightly ajar door, asked: “Something the matter, sir?”
“Haemorrhoids, Jeeves. The old backdoor blues,” Bertie whispered hoarsely, announcing as if an army of ants had him at their mercy.
It turns out that haemorrhoids are a far larger problem than you can sit on. Smartphone use in toilets has been linked to a 46 per cent increased risk of haemorrhoids.
Over half (54 per cent) of the global population — around 4.3 billion people — owns a smartphone, according to the GSMA’s annual State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report 2023. Now, take a clue from a research by bathroom supplies company QS Supplies from earlier this year: Americans spend 49 hours using their phone on the commode, which is just over two full days a year down the drain.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre report did a cross-sectional analysis of 125 patients undergoing screening colonoscopies to find that smartphone users in the group spent significantly more time on the toilet, according to the study published in PLOS One.
About 37 per cent of people who were part of the study and reported using smartphones on the toilet spent more than five minutes per bathroom visit compared with 7 per cent of non-scrollers.
Among the participants, 66 per cent reported using smartphones on the toilet, and they tended to be younger than non-users.
Haemorrhoids (piles) are swollen veins inside the rectum or outside the anus that can cause pain, itchiness and anal bleeding.
An estimated one in 20 Americans has haemorrhoids, which affect more than half of people over age 50. It leads to nearly four million visits to the doctor or emergency room per year in the US.
“We’re still uncovering the many ways smartphones and our modern way of life impact our health. It’s possible that how and where we use them — such as while in the bathroom— can have unintended consequences,” Beth Israel’s Dr Trisha Pasricha said in a statement.
The researchers suggest that smartphone use may inadvertently prolong toilet time, potentially increasing pressure in anal tissues, which may then lead to haemorrhoids.
The study suggests that the main risk factor concerns the time spent sitting on the toilet. It could be because the pelvic floor muscles have less support in this position than when we sit on a flat surface.
It appears that besides staying hydrated, eating more fibre and staying active, reading a book on the toilet makes more sense. On that note, Ian McEwan and Dan Brown have their offerings this month.