But does reading MetaFilter help you poop?

February 14, 2019 5:07 AM

Does reading on the toilet help you poop? references a 2011 Guardian article (previously). If you don't have a serious need to go, and you haven't overdone it on the cherries, then maybe. Science says that 52.7% of Israeli adults indulged, to no effect either way. Other issues abound e.g. is it offensive to read the bible while on the toilet? Does also being naked help? Or phoning your cable company? Or wearing a hat while reading? What potty-prose is most suitable? Moby Dick? Otherwise, perhaps some oats? Serious point: read if you want, but always look back.
posted by Wordshore (38 comments total)

Damnit Johnny.
posted by Fizz at 5:25 AM on February 14, 2019 [5 favorites]

Timely. I was just headed off with a KenKen. Not sure if that counts as reading.
posted by MtDewd at 5:44 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Just noticed that one of the comments on the article linked through the cable company thing reads:

"My boyfriend spent 15 minutes in the bathroom last weekend trying to beat his Flappy Wings score."

...and I am seriously side-eyeing it.
posted by Wordshore at 5:53 AM on February 14, 2019

Seriously. It’s Flappy Bird. And I’m married.
posted by q*ben at 6:00 AM on February 14, 2019 [5 favorites]

I remember when the iPhone first came out a CBC radio segment interviewed a proctologist who was very concerned that people spending extended periods of time on the toilet looking at their shiny new smart phones would lead to a plague of *pause to look up spelling* hemorrhoids cases, and advised people to finish up, pull up their pants, put the seat lid down and sit that way if they wanted to read on the toilet. Still waiting for how the increase in the negative effects of sit time have shaken out.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:01 AM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is a well put together FPP. Thanks for making it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:28 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

I find it's the only place where I can enjoy poetry. Take from that what you will.
posted by OHenryPacey at 6:45 AM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

Bless you.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:47 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

brb, going to add FecalFebruary tag to my posts
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:48 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm thinking of going to MeTa and suggesting a PooFilter subsite for all these feculent posts.
posted by TedW at 6:55 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

I believe the iPad is the perfect toilet reading device.
Especially at night when I get up 4 times to pee/poop.
posted by davebarnes at 7:05 AM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

I wonder if reading on the toilet has decreased productivity in the workplace since the advent of the smart phone? I'd imagine it's not that significant as before people would just take a newspaper or a magazine to the loo.
posted by Fizz at 7:15 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's the only place I could be free enough from distractions to read Plato's Republic. So...yeah.
posted by notsnot at 7:28 AM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

For me, any trip to a bookstore is usually a reliable way to trigger an immediate poop response.
posted by bwvol at 7:30 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

I am a strictly-a-magazine guy in the bathroom. I have observed that if I forget my magazine, and have no entertainment whatsoever in there, the whole job is finished significantly sooner.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 7:37 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's the only place I could be free enough from distractions to read Plato's Republic. So...yeah.

Any sort of studying puts me right to sleep these days. I’m too old for that; people will think I’ve had a stroke.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:45 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

The most arresting argument against reading in the can, for me, has been that John Waters calls having reading material in the bathroom "the most disgusting thing I can think of." (Examples from interviews here, here.)

"It's simple -- if you go to someone's house and look at magazines in their bathroom, is that how you want to see your hosts? Ever heard of shit and get off the pot? Do you want hernias? Keep it up. All that straining is not good for you."
posted by miles per flower at 8:03 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Good stuff. Now if someone could explain why I have to poop literally any time I walk into a Home Depot.
posted by vverse23 at 8:08 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

I never quite understood the point of reading material in the loo. I guess I'm just a fast pooper but I wouldn't be able to read an entire page before I would be getting ready to wipe and leave. I'd be looking at nearly two years to finish a Game of Thrones novel on the Throne. I suppose though, that if I start again now from the beginning the next novel should hopefully be out by the time I've finished.
posted by koolkat at 8:12 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

... and have no entertainment whatsoever in there ...

I feel this may be a regrettable request for clarification but, apart from your magazines, what other entertainment befits your noble bathroom?
posted by Wordshore at 8:12 AM on February 14, 2019

vverse23: my hypootheses include a) the sight of many toilets b) the smell of logs c) the word "home" everywhere!
posted by wellred at 8:23 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

There's a reason that Jack Dorsey picked a product name that rhymed with "shitter."
posted by wenestvedt at 9:17 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

At home I read Private Eye in the smallest room. At work... I'm reading this post.

No, I really am.
posted by chavenet at 9:20 AM on February 14, 2019 [5 favorites]

I'd be looking at nearly two years to finish a Game of Thrones novel on the Throne.

That is one hell of a visit.
posted by Segundus at 9:42 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Does also being naked help?

Not during the winter! Yeek.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:08 AM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

chavenet: At home I read Private Eye in the smallest room.

[Composer Max] Reger had an acrimonious relationship with Rudolf Louis, the music critic of the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten, who usually had negative opinions of his compositions. After the first performance of the Sinfonietta in A major, Op. 90, on 2 February 1906, Louis wrote a typically negative review on 7 February. Reger wrote back to him: "Ich sitze in dem kleinsten Zimmer in meinem Hause. Ich habe Ihre Kritik vor mir. Im nächsten Augenblick wird sie hinter mir sein!" ("I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me!").

This always slays me. Also, I often mis-remember that it was a Mark Twain line, who I am sure would agree with me that it is even more beautiful in German than in English.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:17 AM on February 14, 2019 [5 favorites]

For me, any trip to a bookstore is usually a reliable way to trigger an immediate poop response.

We just learned in the (MeFites-and-friends-written!) 20th Century Women mini-league on Learned League that that has a name. It's the Mariko Aoki phenomenon! (I did not get this question correct, sadly.)
posted by rewil at 11:09 AM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

*sigh* Its... a good post.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:54 AM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

It's the Mariko Aoki phenomenon!

Who knew!? I'm also amazed by the length of the Wikipedia entry regarding this phenomenon.
posted by bwvol at 12:28 PM on February 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

My 8th grade math teacher who hsd a Southern accent kept yelling at us to review the axioms of algebra including while we were pooping, he said "a times b equals b times a, that's multiplicative commutativity, plop", (class giggles stressfully), "a plus negative a equals zero, that's the additive inverse, plop" (more fearful laughter).
To this day i like to read up a bit of math on my phone, I've come to find it quite peaceful and the perfect unit of mental concentration
posted by polymodus at 12:32 PM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Reading on the toilet? I don't know, but a visit to a bookstore? An emphatic YES.
posted by zardoz at 1:09 PM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

wenestvedt: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house"

That was my reference, indeed. I have no idea who originally said it (I have heard Twain, also GB Shaw) but the phrase is perfect. And Reger seems indeed to be the originator! (So, thanks!)
posted by chavenet at 4:20 PM on February 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

My parents did not believe in magazines, so I've read a lot of shampoo / tile cleaner bottles in the pre-smartphone days.
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:35 PM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

It was The Chart on Monday
Tuesday & Wednesday The Affidavit.
Surmises this morning.
Tomorrow it'll be The Mat-Maker.

Works like a charm.
posted by buzzv at 4:37 PM on February 14, 2019

> I've read a lot of shampoo / tile cleaner bottles in the pre-smartphone days

DILUTE! DILUTE! DILUTE!

I don't understand the thinking that it would lead to straining and hemorrhoids. Surely if one has reading material on hand, one is more relaxed and less hurried?
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:21 PM on February 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

Building a Twitter-enabled Litterbox (that may have been linked previously and I missed seeing it.)
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:23 PM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'll take a crossword puzzle that I'm stuck on to the throne and study it for a while with no progress. A little later, once I am unstuck below, I find I am unstuck above as well, and the puzzle will finish quite easily. Not sure what it means, but it is highly reproducible.
posted by M-x shell at 11:41 AM on February 17, 2019

LBJ did a lot of presidentin’ on the toilet (no executive time for him!); compared to that the rest of these activities are not that big a deal.
posted by TedW at 1:16 PM on February 18, 2019