Taking your smartphone to the toilet risks becoming a real pain in your behind.
A new United States study found that smartphone use on the toilet was associated with a 46 percent increased risk of having haemorrhoids.
Conducted by a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, more than 125 adults undergoing routine colonoscopy at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center were surveyed for the report.
Gastroenterologist Trisha Pasricha said two thirds of participants admitted to using their phones on the toilet with phone users five times more likely to sit for more than five minutes per trip.
“We all tell our patients not to spend longer than a couple minutes on the toilet,” Dr Pasricha said.
“We all have this sense that spending too long on the toilet is bad for you.”
She said when people who reported using smartphones on the toilet were asked whether they ever sat on the toilet longer than they intended because of their phone, only about half said yes.
“But smartphone users were five times more likely to spend more than five minutes on the toilet compared to non-users.
“So clearly, people are spending more time — but only half of them recognize that their phone is the reason.”
Dr Pasricha said the research followed on from a 1989 study which looked at people reading newspapers on the toilet.
She said it found there was as association between how many patients read the newspaper on the toilet and how many of them had haemorrhoids.
“Now in 2025, I don’t think anyone’s reading the newspaper, but we know everybody’s on their phones in the bathroom. So, I thought we needed to update this literature for the modern TikTok era.”
Dr Pasricha said while haemorrhoids were not a serious condition they could impact somebody’s quality of life.
“In terms of healthcare expenditure, they are the third most common reason people see their doctors.”
Read the study (but not on the toilet): Smartphone use on the toilet and the risk of hemorrhoids.
