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Researchers found that scrolling while pooping dramatically raises your chance of getting hemorrhoids

A good reason to be mindful of your time on the toilet.

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A man looking at his phone on the toilet.

Have you ever been scrolling through social media on your phone and then suddenly wondered where all the time went? You glance at the clock and wonder, “OMG, did I really just spend 30 minutes mindlessly scrolling on this app?” Well, after a new report published in PLOS ONE, you’ll think twice about getting lost doomscrolling while sitting on the toilet.

A team of researchers at Boston Medical Center found that people who scroll on their phones while pooping have a much higher chance of getting hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids are swollen veins, akin to varicose veins, that are either internal or external. They can be painful, itchy, and sometimes bleed.

Looking at your smartphone on the toilet could cause hemorrhoids

“Smartphone use on the toilet was associated with a 46% increased risk of hemorrhoids,” the paper found after adjusting for sex, age, fiber intake, and exercise activity. To come to this grim conclusion, the researchers interviewed 125 patients at the medical center and asked them about their toilet habits, including whether they scrolled through their phone or not.

phone, toilet, hemorrhoids, smartphone, tiktok, social media, toilet health A woman looking at her phone on the toilet.via Canva/Photos

What the researchers found was that those who bring their phone into the bathroom spend more time on the toilet; therefore, increasing the likelihood of developing hemorrhoids. “Of all respondents, 83 (66%) used smartphones while on the toilet,” the study found. “Furthermore, smartphone users spent considerably more time on the toilet compared to non-smartphone users, with many spending more than five minutes on the toilet per visit.”

Of those who looked at the phone on the toilet, 37.3% said that they sat on the throne for six to fifteen minutes. Non-phone users sat longer than six minutes only 7.1% of the time. "The likely explanation is that prolonged sitting increases pressure in the veins around the rectum, which can contribute to hemorrhoids," Dr. Ernesto Gonzaga, a gastroenterologist from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News.

“When you’re sitting on an open toilet bowl, you have no pelvic floor support,” Dr. Trisha Pasricha, the study’s senior author and a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, told CNN. The study said that 54% of people who use the phone while pooping are reading the news, and 44% said they were scrolling through social media.

phone, toilet, hemorrhoids, smartphone, tiktok, social media, toilet health A man looking at his phone on the toilet.via Canva/Photos

The study was conducted on people 45 and over

The study was conducted on people aged 45 and older, a beneficial group to examine because some individuals in this age group don’t bring their phones to the bathroom. The study would have been much harder to conduct on younger people.

“It was helpful to have this (45 and older) group because there were people who didn’t use their smartphones on the toilet. So we had a comparison group,” Dr. Trisha Pasricha, the study’s senior author, told CNN. “Having a third of people not bringing their smartphones to the bathroom helped us understand what a baseline could look like, especially as I imagine the situation is more profound for younger individuals.”

If you’re afraid of developing hemorrhoids, the first step is to make sure that, if you take your phone with you to the bathroom, you stop scrolling when you’re done evacuating your bowels. You can also eat more high fiber foods, such as fruits and vegetables, and be sure to exhale while pushing and not strain. It’s also important to keep a healthy weight and to avoid sitting for too long, whether on a toilet or in your car. Hemorrhoids are a pain in the butt, and they’re not worth it, no matter how great the latest tea is on TikTok.

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Modern Families

36-year-old grabs and flips the camera during 'Happy Birthday' song. It's actually genius.

Who needs a boring video of a grown adult staring at a cake when you can have this?

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The birthday girl grabbed the camera and turned it around while party guests sang—and the result was amazing.

No proper birthday celebration is complete without an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" sung by a number of friends and family members of various vocal talents. Even as an adult, you may not have an elaborate party, but it's still nice to enjoy that small moment: A small cake, cupcake, or other treat, and 30 seconds of love and recognition from the people who mean the most to you.

Inevitably, someone will whip out their phone to record the occasion. If you've been the birthday person recently, you know it's a little uncomfortable to have someone filming you as you stare at the cake and smile politely, waiting for the song to end. And besides, who wants to watch that video back anyway?

One woman is going viral on social media for giving the dry, overdone "Happy Birthday" video a clever twist.

birthday, birthday party, aging, selfies, photography, pictures, memories, family, love, culture, smartphones A good reminder to never take it for granted when you have people to help you celebrate. Photo by Bave Pictures on Unsplash

Deniz Kayiket recently posted a reel captioned: "It took me 36 years to realize you're supposed to record birthday videos the other way around."

In the video, she's shown sitting at a table as someone presents her with a cake that's adorned with lit candles, including a fancy, sparkly one in the middle. Kayiket then reaches out for the camera phone, taking it away from whoever's filming, and spins the camera around to capture the audience of friends and family in attendance.

The result is so joyful and full of life I can't believe everyone doesn't take videos like this.

The clip went mega viral to the tune of over 10 million views and hundreds of thousands of responses.

People found the idea of Kayiket capturing not her own celebratory milestone, but the people who had gathered to help her make it special, so overwhelmingly beautiful.

"Ohhh how i wish this happened when I was a kid! What i wouldn't give to see those people again"

"Sometimes it's hard to simply realize, those that you surround yourself with may not always be there. But cherish each moment with them. Life's too short for arguments, negativity, or past problems. You never know when's the last time you'll see someone you love."

birthday, birthday party, aging, selfies, photography, pictures, memories, family, love, culture, smartphones No party is too small to make a great memory. Giphy

The comments kept rolling in on TikTok, where the clip racked up another nearly three million views:

"Im jealous on what you get to look back on. I never made my birthdays relevant enough to remember"

"Why is this the sweetest thing ever"

"The fact that she thought to do this shows how aware and appreciative she is for everything she has. This is not someone who takes things for granted"

Some commenters claimed that the real 'trick' is to be in the moment and focused on the people around you without any phones or cameras at all. But that sentiment, while valid, misses the point.

"Whenever I watch the videos and photos of my past birthdays I feels so grateful for taking them, memories fade, photos and videos stay," someone astutely noted.

In an era where photos and videos have become so ubiquitous, it's crucial to find ways to make them really count.

With 91% of Americans owning an iPhone or equivalent smartphone, we have the capacity to take a nearly unlimited number of photos and videos. It can be a great thing. You'll never miss a moment anymore! You'll never be unpleasantly surprised to find your film print ruined by bad lighting or a thumb over the lens (which happened to me too many times when I was younger). But there's also something about the unlimited-ness of it all that has made photos and video less special.

(There was something amazing about the era of old photo albums, where you might have one good picture of a birthday party, or just a handful of shots with a relative who died when you were young. It's nice to have more, but those felt incredibly meaningful. Now the average user has upwards of 2000 photos stored on their devices, and even that seems like a conservative estimate.)

When I watch Kayiket's video, I can't help but think of the old photography advice that says something to the effect of, "If a photo doesn't have someone you love in it, you'll never look at it again."

I think about it all the time when I'm trying to capture a sunset or take in a breathtaking view. The photo never does it justice, anyway, and I never go back and look at them. But I do want to see photos of my friends and family in meaningful moments, big and small. I definitely don't need a zillion more photos of myself, but I would pay really good money to have a video like hers from birthdays past of my parents, relatives who have since passed away, and old friends who got together to sing and congratulate me.

So, if you're a grown adult with a birthday coming up, try this cool trick. Grab the camera and flip it around while your loved ones clap and celebrate. It'll be a unique and amazing video to look back on one day.

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Gen Zer shares 5 incredible things that happened after quitting social media 4 years ago

"You cherish your day-to-day life."

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A teenage girl stares at her phone at night.

Quynh Van, 26, a UX designer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gave herself the ultimate challenge for a Gen Zer four years ago: she vowed to quit social media. Now, she has returned to social media on TikTok to share the big difference the sabbatical made in her life.

"I quit social media four years ago, and it completely changed my life," Van said in the video. "For background, I deleted everything—Instagram, Twitter, everything—back in the beginning of 2021. It is now 2025, and I just started TikTok a month ago, and this is the only social media I have."

In a video that has received over 800,000 views, she shares the massive impact that leaving social media had on her life.

What does it feel like to quit social media?

@quynhxvan

one of the best decisions I’ve made #slowliving #digitaldetox #selfgrowth #selfdevelopment #mentalhealth #tiktokdiary #advice #selfimprovement #mindfulness #meditation #peace #peaceful #nature #socialmedia

1. She became her authentic self

“You're just a much more interesting person because you're not consuming what other people are wearing, what they're thinking, what they're saying. And you just have space for your own thoughts. You have space for learning new hobbies, reading new books, reading articles. So you just become much more interesting because you're present in your actual self.”

2. She has more time

“It's just so productive and it's so freeing. Life just stops disappearing into a scroll. My days would feel longer. I would feel more fulfilled. I would fill it with so much stuff. Learning, reflecting, moving. I was actually doing things and I was building a life instead of just watching one go by and like, looking up from my phone and seeing that four hours had passed.”

social media, smartphones, social media addiction, teens smart phones, screentime Sad teenage girl staring at her phone. via Canva/Photos

3. She stopped comparing herself to others

“I just think it's a natural tendency for humans to compare. You're always going to compare value A to value B. That's just a natural human tendency. You don't need to try and shut it down completely. But it's not normal for us to have a window into everyone's lives at all times. I think that has broken our brains a little bit.”

4. She got in touch with her emotions

“You can't inoculate yourself with dopamine hits and avoid the painful emotions anymore with social media. You have to learn to sit in the discomfort. You have to learn to face yourself and learn to sit with your difficult emotions. I wasn't able to escape my feelings anymore and that really changed everything. Made me stronger, it made me more emotionally resilient, and I was able to gain peace in my own head. Like my brain just felt like green. It's a forest of peace. It was amazing.”

social media, smartphones, social media addiction, teens smart phones, screentime, teens phones A group of teens staring at their phones. via Canva/Photos

5. Better relationships

“You just show up differently, and people can feel that you're more present, you listen better. You're just so in the present that you really see people when you're with them, and they can feel that, and you feel that with yourself. You feel so present with yourself, and you cherish them more because you just cherish your day-to-day life.”

For some, quitting social media may seem impossible. It’s how most people keep up with their friends these days. Further, the platforms are engineered to control our brain chemistry so much that taking a break feels like detoxing from an addictive substance. But Van wants to remind everyone that it’s possible, even when it may not feel that way.

“Honestly, the biggest thing about deleting my social media was knowing that I can live without it,” she said at the end of her video. “At the time, I felt like I couldn't live without it, and now I know that I can and I'm better for it.”

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Education

High school teacher quits her job because 'technology is ruining education'

“We’ve got to start getting rid of the technology and bringing back the things that worked.”

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A stressed teacher and student looking at her phone.

Last year, the National Center for Education Statistics published a disturbing study that found that the number of Americans with the lowest measured literacy levels increased substantially between 2017 and 2023. In 2017, 19% of U.S. adults ranked at the lowest levels of literacy, and that number increased to 28% in 2023.

“It is larger than what we would normally see in an international assessment, particularly literacy, which is a fairly stable construct,” NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said. She added that low literacy levels don’t mean someone is illiterate, but cannot read and write at a level to handle basic living and workplace tasks. When pressed for an answer to the literacy decline in America, she said, “It is difficult to say.”

Why are teachers leaving education?

Hannah Maria, an outgoing 10th-grade English teacher, went viral recently for a nine-minute video in which she described the reason why she thinks there has been a big decline in literacy in the U.S.: technology. The problem has become so bad that it was a major reason why she decided to leave the profession.

"Technology is directly contributing to the literacy decrease we are seeing in this country right now. A lot of these kids don't know how to read because they have had things read to them, or they can click a button and have something read out loud to them,” Maria said. “Their attention spans are weaning because everything is high-stimulation, and they can just scroll [away from something] in less than a minute. They can’t sit still for very long.”

Her students no longer care about watching movies in class; they just stare at their phones. Maria can count on her hands the number of kids in her three classes who actually pay attention to the film on movie day. This lack of attention span and disinterest in learning literacy skills makes it a chore to ask them to write anything by hand. "It's disheartening because if I ask a child to handwrite something, even just a paragraph, five sentences, a basic paragraph, they roll their eyes, throw tantrums. ...they get really unruly,” she lamented.

smartphone, student, student cellphone, desk, classroom, staring at phoneA child staring at his phone in the classroom.via Canva/Photos

Maria says students' disinterest in literacy skills has led them to stop caring about America's foundational documents. That’s a big problem in a democracy that requires a well-informed electorate.

The former teacher suggests that kids should be cut off from technology until they reach college to reverse this trend. "Call me old-fashioned, but we're at the point where I really don't have a lot of faith in some of these kids that I teach. That doesn't go for all," she says, noting she'd had "several" students who have bright futures and want to succeed.

smartphone, student, young woman, backback, hallwayA distressed student with a smartphone sits in the hallway. via Canva/Photos

However, she doesn’t hold her students 100% accountable for the trend. "The older generations have failed them because they haven't emphasized enough that learning how to read and write and use basic mathematical skills is important. These kids just have these devices in their hands that they think will get them through the rest of their life,” she said. “We’ve got to start getting rid of the technology and bringing back the things that worked.”

Ultimately, her students’ attitudes have led Maria to find a new career. She says the biggest reason she’s leaving education is the pay, but if the experience with the students was better, she could have "toughed it out."

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