3 reasons why you should not take your phone to the bathroom

It is customary that when we go to the bathroom we take something to read. We usually take a magazine or a section of the newspaper, for distraction since the time sitting at the toilet we spend it’s doing nothing. However, carrying word-stamped papers to the bathroom is a thing of the past.

Woman with phone in the bathroom

Nowadays, where our smartphones have everything we need, we take them with us to the toilet. Everybody is guilty of browsing the Instagram profiles, Facebook newsfeed and recent tweets in every occasion and being on the toilet is not the exception. On the contrary, many people even complain when they arrive to the water closet without their phones –or tablets- to keep on texting through WhatsApp.

What many of us ignore is that taking our phones to the toilet is very dangerous. If you have to go, you have to let it go, or else face the horrid consequences. Here are some of those hideous results:

It can make you sick

The first reason is very important because taking our smartphone to the toilet can make us, and everyone around us, very sick. Our phone’s surface is a perfect home to host bacteria, especially with the creases and crevices of the cover; the ones made out of rubber material hold even more bacteria. When we take our phones to the bathroom, an environment of air and water particles crammed with bacteria, we are basically taking a sponge to a river.

All those bacteria are going to cling to our smartphone or tablet like dying organisms holding on to life. The worse aspect of this ordeal is that among the bacteria found in these environments are Escherichia coli, shigella, and salmonella, and all of them are agents that cause serious diseases, not to mention the possible viruses to be found in a public toilet.

Imagine then what other people are getting when coming in contact with your phone. If you want maintain your clean bill of health, and help people around you, keep your phone away from the toilets.

It can embarrass you

Forgetting the reason that a phone in the toilet can make you very sick, you need to take into account the fact that this practice can lead to public embarrassment. We all know that ‘to each its own’ and that ‘there is place for everything’. Certainly the loo is place dedicated to certain activities that can only (or at least, should) be done in these rooms. These activities produce certain sounds that are normal for this environment. Imagine that you decide to take your phone to the toilet while urgent need to “free up some space”, and important call comes in.

Naturally, you take it and the conversation ensues and carries on. In the midst of the dialogue, you continue your routine and you flush the toilet –while the call is still on. The image that the caller will have of you will shift greatly and not to a better way. It is best to step out if a call comes in and you have to take it, or do not take it all. The flusher might be someone else, anyways.

You might drop it, in the water or else

Finally, the clumsy reason not to have your phone while in the bathroom is to avoid another undesired accident. After spending more than $500 on the newest model, it would be a shame to drop your smartphone on the toilet and let the tainted water to ruin it, or worse, to drop it and it does not fall directly in the water. Conclusion? If you have to go, let it go.