You may want to think twice before asking to borrow your friend’s cell, a new survey suggests. Odds are, that phone has spent some time near the toilet.
Three-quarters of the 2,000 people surveyed admitted to using their phone while on the commode. One-quarter of men said they chose to sit on the toilet instead of stand, just so they could keep chatting.
Fifty-nine percent had texted while doing their business, while 45 percent typed out entire emails.
It seems apps and games have replaced magazines as a way to pass time in the bathroom. Twenty-nine percent of survey takers said they looked at their phones because they “wanted to prevent boredom setting in.”
The survey was commissioned in Britain by Sony and O2, which are marketing a waterproof smartphone, The Telegraph reports — good news for the half of survey respondents who said they used their phones while taking a bath.
If the corporate sponsorship makes you raise an eyebrow, there’s other evidence to suggest those phones are catching germs one way or another. An observational study conducted by Harris Interactive in 2005 found 18 percent of people did not wash their hands after using the restroom.
