smartphone usage
Scrolling on the toilet: trend towards going to the toilet with a cell phone
Going to the toilet used to be a kind of break – but today more and more Germans are taking their smartphones with them to this once quiet place. (Faced scene) Photo: Robert Michael/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
More and more Germans take their smartphones with them to the toilet to surf the web. A survey reveals that. Why so many people indulge in social media activity on the loo these days.
Phenomenon WWW even at the toilet: The little place has become a gateway to the world. Going to the toilet used to be a kind of time-out, Dad only leafed through the newspaper there, some people also in a magazine or book. Today, on the other hand, millions of people around the world have their smartphones with them when they go to the toilet and are mobile online. The trend is towards smart bowel movements.
A survey by cybersecurity company NordVPN recently found that 55 percent of adults in Germany now take their cell phones with them to the toilet. Seven years ago it should have been only 42 percent of German citizens.
In a survey conducted by the consumer portal “Handytarife.de” in 2015, a good 8 percent answered that they “yes, often” take their mobile device with them to the toilet. 13 percent said “yes, sometimes” and about 21 percent said “yes, but only rarely” (42 percent together). At 55.5 percent, however, more than half said in the representative survey at the time: “No, never”. According to the current survey from 2022, the strict “no” now only comes to 37 percent.
Spaniards most often online when going to the toilet
According to this year’s survey, of all the countries surveyed, adults in Spain use their smartphones the most in the toilet. Almost 80 percent of those surveyed stated that they used this method to drive away boredom.
It is followed by Poland (about 73 percent), the USA (about 71 percent), Canada (about 66 percent), the Netherlands and France (about 64 percent each), as well as Australia (62) and Great Britain (59).
Germany is at the bottom of this list. You could also say: in the toilet you are conservative in this country.
Germans like to check the news
Almost universally, the most popular activity for Abort cellphone users is scrolling through social media channels. For Germans, however, it is also important to find out about the news when using the toilet (49 percent). Locus logic: the right place for the fucking world situation.
In addition, things are checked for work (33 percent), online games are played (32 percent), videos, films or TV shows are watched (24 percent), friends are called or written to (23 percent) or the day is planned (around April 15). Percent).
“Even before smartphones were used, people consumed media in the toilet,” emphasizes behavioral researcher Clemens Stachl, who comes from Austria and teaches in St. Gallen (Switzerland). However, the professor of behavioral science sees a new dimension. “In this context, I often talk about the lens function of the smartphone,” says Stachl. “It concentrates and bundles on a single device many activities that used to be carried out in specific places or in other contexts: dating, banking, shopping, gaming, navigating, planning trips, learning languages and so on.”
The psychologist and Internet addiction researcher Hans-Jürgen Rumpf sees a certain tradition in today’s behavior. “People used to read on the toilet. There is a study from 20 years ago, according to which at least a quarter of the population read books or comics on the toilet. This behavior was – and is – more pronounced in men.”
However, since the smartphone offers many more options, scrolling on the toilet will be much more widespread in 2022 than just reading was in 2002. “The mobile phone simply offers more options than a book on demand, and also enables exchange with others during the little downtime,” says Rumpf, who is the principal investigator for the Scavis study, a nationwide project with an app to study problematic smartphone use.
From the fear of missing something
In principle, the expert from the University of Lübeck sees no harmful behavior in the mobile phone in the toilet. “The view that even there people couldn’t stand being alone with themselves falls short.” Passing the time with the small computers is much more appealing and diverse than with other media. In the last 15 years, a culture of constant availability has developed that extends into the formerly “quiet minutes”.
However, as Rumpf emphasizes, the “FoMO” phenomenon – i.e. the fear of missing something (FoMO stands for “Fear of missing out”) – is spreading. “This obsessive worry and anxiety can lead to intensive smartphone use and be the precursor to problematic and eventually addictive use.” The rate of people at risk for this development and dependency is likely to be higher among toilet scrollers than among those who don’t take their cell phones to the toilet, says Rumpf. All in all, he recommends using the cell phone consciously and putting it away more often, especially when eating together, before going to bed and maybe even when going to the toilet.