Toilet Time With Your Phone May Raise Risk of Hemorrhoids

by Joedy McCreary, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today

February 4, 2026 • a month read

People who scroll on their phones while sitting on the toilet are more likely to have hemorrhoids than those who don't, a cross-sectional study found.

In a survey of 125 adults age 45 and older undergoing screening colonoscopy, smartphone use in the bathroom was tied to a 46% higher risk of hemorrhoids (P=0.044) after adjusting for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), exercise, fiber intake, and straining, according to Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues.

While straining was not linked to hemorrhoids, time on the toilet may be: 37.3% of smartphone users said they spent more than 5 minutes per trip versus 7.1% of nonusers (P=0.006), the authors reported in PLoS One.

"I think we all had the sense that sitting [and] scrolling on the toilet is not going to be so great for you, but I don't think we really appreciated how much and how great that impact would be on this risk of hemorrhoids," Pasricha told MedPage Today.

Of course, the act of reading on the toilet is "a tale as old as time," Pasricha said. But unlike printed copies of newspapers and magazines, smartphones are engineered to hold attention.

"What's different today, in 2025, is that we're using these smartphones with these apps, these social media apps and others that are all designed to really make us lose track of time, to distract us, to keep us fed into this algorithm," Pasricha said. "So we're not really making a conscious choice to click on the next story or decide, 'Do we want to sit here?'"

Rajiv Bhuta, MD, of Temple Health in Philadelphia, called the findings "objective validation of what was going on" and told MedPage Today they align with advice he gives his patients.

"If you want to avoid hemorrhoids, these are the rules to follow on the toilet -- basically, one, two, and three are, just don't even bring your smartphone into the bathroom," said Bhuta, who was not involved in the study.

While prolonged sitting in general has not been definitively linked to hemorrhoids, the authors pointed out that a standard toilet seat lacks the pelvic floor support of a chair or couch. Over time, that can increase pressure on hemorrhoidal cushions.

"The longer you've been sitting in that position, the more your connective tissue around those hemorrhoidal cushions weakens," Pasricha said. "And then when that connective tissue weakens and those veins start to bulge, that's when you get symptomatic hemorrhoids."

The findings should encourage physicians to ask about bathroom smartphone use, Pasricha said.

"When we talk about somebody who's struggling in the bathroom, we often say, 'OK, are you drinking enough water? Are you having enough fiber?'" she said. "A question that I'm asking all my patients is, 'Do you bring your phone in or not?' My suspicion is that if we ask about it more and we encourage people to leave their phone outside the bathroom, there's going to be some people who actually find that they're able to more easily accomplish the task that they need to accomplish when they go in there."

For the study, patients age 45 and older who were undergoing screening colonoscopy at Beth Israel Deaconess from August to December 2024 were asked to participate. Of the 143 invited to take the survey, 125 completed it; 53.6% were men and 66.4% said they used their smartphone on the toilet. Smartphone users tended to be younger than nonusers (55.4 vs 62.1 years) and exercised significantly less per week (P=0.017).

In an unadjusted analysis, about half (50.6%) of phone users had at least one hemorrhoid detected on colonoscopy compared to 38.1% for nonusers -- a difference that was not statistically significant (P=0.257).

The authors noted several limitations, including self-reported survey responses, the subjectivity of colonoscopy reports, and the cross-sectional design that prevents proving causality. They also did not assess how many years participants had been using smartphones on the toilet and the group surveyed may not be representative of the general population. Pasricha said her team plans to study the behavior in younger adults.

"They've had smartphones for as long as they can remember, a lot of them, and so they've been bringing the smartphones into the bathroom their whole lives," Pasricha said. "I think that length of time, the number of years that you've been using your smartphone in the bathroom, I think all of that could build and kind of accelerate the weakening of that connective tissue. This is a hunch. It's something that we need to look into a little bit more, but I do suspect that we're going to see some of these changes even more aggravated in a younger population."

 

Joedy McCreary Is an enterprise and investigative writer based in North Carolina’s Triangle with 25 years of experience at USA Today, the AP and CBS 17 in Raleigh. He has covered misinformation, public health data trends and COVID-19.