Filling the time you spend pooping by scanning your algo’s latest or flipping through emails might seem like an ideal form of multitasking. But it turns out, your butt might not love it. A new study found that using your phone on the toilet can significantly increase your risk of hemorrhoids, or swollen blood vessels in and around your rectal area that can cause uncomfortable symptoms, like itching, pain, and bloody poops.
Researchers surveyed 125 people undergoing a routine screening colonoscopy (which is recommended starting at age 45) about their smartphone toilet habits, as well as other lifestyle behaviors related to pooping. What they found: People who reported enlisting their phone as a bathroom companion were at 46% greater risk of having hemorrhoids show up on their colonoscopy. And that was true even after the researchers accounted for things like how much fiber people reported eating and whether they strained to poop (less fiber intake and more pushing have been linked in the past with developing the angry blood vessels).
Why using your phone on the toilet raises your hemorrhoid risk
It likely has to do with how long you wind up hanging out on the toilet when your phone is in the picture. The researchers found that the phone-using participants were five times more likely than no-phone poopers to spend more than five minutes perched on the porcelain throne. And sitting on the toilet for prolonged periods has long been known to raise your risk of hemorrhoids because of some basic physics.
“When you’re on the toilet and your butt’s not supported, everything’s kind of hanging out there,” David Westrich, MD, a gastroenterologist at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, previously told SELF. That position “increases pressure in the hemorrhoidal cushions,” the study authors write. Cue: puffy blood vessels in your nether regions.
You might be thinking, Okay, so what if I just use my phone on the toilet for a couple minutes? And theoretically, that would be fine. After all, people have been reading physical books or newspapers while on the toilet for as long as those things have existed.
But what the study also found is that most smartphone poopers were not aware that their phone use was extending their toilet time—as the study authors write, it was probably an “inadvertent and unintended consequence.” And that makes sense: Plenty of apps are literally designed to suck us in (against our will). So it’s very likely that if you tote your phone to the toilet, you’ll be there longer than the recommended five minutes, risking the development of hemorrhoids over time.
How to lower your risk of hemorrhoids
For starters, leave your phone out of the bathroom. Without the potential distraction, you’re less likely to sit on the toilet longer than you need to. (Not to mention the ick factor of keeping something you readily touch and hold to your face in such close proximity to poop and pee particles.)