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Using Tablets Becoming Popular Bathroom Activity 348

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept.
alphadogg says "With the market flush with hot-selling tablet computers, it shouldn't bowl anyone over to learn that many users are taking the plunge and bringing their devices to the bathroom. According to a new survey published by Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of Staples Inc., 35% of tablet users copped to using their iPad or other tablets while in the bathroom, while a whopping 78% of tablet users said they used their tablets while lying in bed. And in a data point sure to further damage techies' reputation for social skills, Staples Advantage also reported that 30% of tablet users said they used their tablets while at restaurants."
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Using Tablets Becoming Popular Bathroom Activity More

Using Tablets Becoming Popular Bathroom Activity

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  • I heard someone say the other day... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mark0 ( 750639 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:45AM (#37180236)
    "Angry Birds has changed the way the world goes to the bathroom"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drpimp ( 900837 )
      I morph the name when I am on the jon, "Angry Turds". Too bad there wasn't a theme to coincide with the name change.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kvasio ( 127200 )

      .... as people go to the bathroom like they were cast from the sling?

      Probably because they procrastinate "loo break" while playing?

  • Laptops (Score:2)

    by hjf ( 703092 )

    So what's the % of people using laptops and smartphones in the bathroom? Didn't we have portable devices before the iPad?

    Sent from my bathroom. (Really).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thynk ( 653762 )

      You can count me in the group using smart phones in the bathroom, ever since I first discovered an ebook reader... back on CE 5 or 6. Now my news reader is on my phone too :-)

    • Re:Laptops (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:57AM (#37180434) Journal

      You people need to eat more fiber.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xaxa ( 988988 )

        You people need to eat more fiber.

        Agreed, I think. At least, I buy only wholegrain pretty-much-everything (bread, pasta, rice, wraps, muesli). I often take my phone with my to the toilet at work (I don't like leaving it out on my desk, so I pick it up as I walk away). It's generally still in my hand when I open the cubicle, but experience tells me I have time to read about half a short email.

        TMI?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by scumdamn ( 82357 )
      I take my full sized notebook into the shitter with me because I don't give a damn.

      • I leave the door open so I can hear voice chat while raiding. Occasionally someone asks for heals and I shout out "lag!"

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Dahamma ( 304068 )

      You know, I'm fine with using a smartphone to check email or read the news in the bathroom. But do people really have to answer calls and talk in the stall??

    • That is fucking disgusting x_x think about what you're getting on your devices by using them on the toilet.

  • Perfect marketing (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    iPooed

  • "Using tablets" also now popular euphemism! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:48AM (#37180280)
    Come on, we all know what your REALY up to in there.

  • Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rogueippacket ( 1977626 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:48AM (#37180282)
    1) Tablets are replacing paper media, not surprised to hear that magazines and other reading materials are disappearing from bathrooms.
    2) I can't name anyone who bought a tablet who did not envision using it as an eReader. Isn't reading still the most popular bedtime activity?
    3) Tablets are great in restaurants. You can show things to your friends and family. It's the douchebags who use tablets instead of conversing at the table that give only themselves a bad name. No different than whipping out a smartphone.

    • Re:Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by somersault ( 912633 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @12:03PM (#37180544) Homepage Journal

      Isn't reading still the most popular bedtime activity?

      I though it was sleeping. I'm way out of touch these days..

    • 1) Tablets are replacing paper media, not surprised to hear that magazines and other reading materials are disappearing from bathrooms.

      Yeah, but in a bathroom there's still some other use of paper media in an emergency...

      • There's finally one application where newspaper beats iPad!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        I dunno. The nice thing about traditional bathroom reading material is the fact that it is disposable. It doesn't matter if it gets wet. It doesn't matter if it's contaminated. It's not something that's going to be dragged out of the bathroom and then through an airport and then hang around your mother's coffee table.

        More people should find the idea of a tablet in the bathroom just plain disgusting.

        • You know, all your body is in the bathroom. And I don't know about you, but most people don't take a shower every time they go to the toilet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      yeah, hey everyone , lets touch my tablet I used in the bathroom just before we eat.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      ...I would also not associate this sort of behavior with "techies".

      The techies are the ones sneering at the whole tablet thing in general. They're not the "target audience" and therefore less likely to be the ones pulling it out at inappropriate times.

  • Wash their hands and disinfect their iPad...afterward?..

    • Re:What percentage (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @12:23PM (#37180838)

      About the same percentage that disinfect and wash their clothing, which also accompanied them on the little trip to the bathroom. Oh and your napkin goes on your lap, on your pants - yeah, those same pants that were pulled down and touched the dirty toilet bowl/floor. Yeah, now wipe your mouth with that napkin.

      Attention Germ freaks: A LITTLE GRIME WILL NEVER KILL YOU. You just think it will.

      • Care to provide any citations for that bullshit? Bacteria are small and have a hard time traveling around. Chances are good that they're not going to be able to move the several inches that it would take for that scenario to play out before drying out or dieing.

        Your hand, the same one that you use to wipe your ass is also the same one that you use to carry your iPad. Any guesses as to what proportion of the folks that are using those devices in the can are washing their hands between wiping their ass and us

  • Wow "flush" and "bowl" used in the first sentence.

  • What's weird at a restaurant? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blogan ( 84463 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:50AM (#37180314)

    If I'm at a restaurant alone, what should I do while waiting for my food to come? If I have a tablet, why not?

    • Re:What's weird at a restaurant? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rthille ( 8526 ) <web-slashdotNO@SPAMrangat.org> on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:52AM (#37180352) Homepage Journal

      If you are there with a group of friends and you're trying to decide what movie to see after, or describe directions to the bar you're heading to next, why not use your tablet. The dig against geeks social skills is idiotic and shows the writer's lack of social skills.

    • If I'm at a restaurant alone, what should I do while waiting for my food to come?

      Find some friends to eat with you.

      • Do you never leave your home town? I have been hired to fly airplanes through Canada to or from Alaska a handful of times. I have taken solo camping trips. I have attended conferences or training out of town by myself. If I am a thousand miles from home, how many friends am I going to find to go have dinner with me? In that case, what exactly is the problem with using a tablet or a smartphone to occupy the time while waiting for my food to arrive?

        Or are you one of those obsessive control freaks who

  • News? (Score:2)

    by nege ( 263655 )

    I use my iPad in all of those locations and I really don't see a problem with it. My iPad is where I read my books now, and people take those to the bathroom or restaurants as well.

    Also this isn't particularly new either. I have been taking devices to the bathroom since my first Palm device. I have a very specific routine (not really by thinking about, it just developed naturally) I have developed to ensure the device never gets dropped in!

  • And in a data point sure to further damage techies' reputation for social skills

    Wait, "techies" wouldn't be caught dead using a tablet. After all, they know notebooks have far more features and power and do everything so much better than silly tablets. Tablets are just for Apple cultists and hipsters following the latest fad! As soon as the novelty wears off, people will buy notebooks again... I know they will...

    (cradles my HP EliteBook and cries)

    • I have some comfort for you:

      By the end of my first day with an iPad, I thought to myself, "You know what would be great? A nice, protective folding case with a keyboard attached to the inside of D'OH!"

      I just tapped out a fairly long email with it, but man... keyboards... they sure are good for typing.

      One advantage I didn't really think about before the pad: a (non-Apple) charger + cable is like, 10 bucks, so I just have three dedicated chargers for different locations around the house. Not having to m

    • LOL, my thoughts exactly.

      Someone using an iPad at a restaurant, is categorically NOT a techie on 2 counts.

  • Eh? (Score:3)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:53AM (#37180370) Journal
    "And in a data point sure to further damage techies' reputation for social skills, Staples Advantage also reported that 30% of tablet users said they used their tablets while at restaurants."

    I'm not sure that the techies will be atypically hard hit by this one. Back in the day, when obsessive computer use required an obsessive interest in gaming and/or some techie esoterica, and it was cost-prohibitive to compute on the move(much less get internet access...), the techie social skills reputation was not exactly bolstered by the tendency to stay inside and play with their computers.

    Then came the mass adoption of laptops and blackberries by practically every 'road warrior' type suit with a salary high enough that paying for the ability to bug him while he was away from the office made sense. This certainly did include some techies; but the population of management/sales types brandishing their blackberries and monopolizing flat surfaces absolutely exploded.

    Now, with cellphones falling well into affordable for all but the most squalid, and Apple having WAFed the hell out of portable computing, it sure isn't techies who I see logging the most socially inappropriate screen time... Not being able to finish a single bloody meal without ignoring the present company to text frantically about nothing is now a mainstream behavior. If anything, the more 'social' people do it more because they have more people to text, and derive greater satisfaction from group-affirming social chatter...
  • makes for a boring summary, let alone article.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Returns? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @11:55AM (#37180394) Homepage

    Ah, but can you return them after they've been in the bathroom?

    (Jerry and George are at Brentano's. George is trying to return the book)
    GEORGE: Yes, I, uh, I need to return this book.
    CASHIER: (Puts the book's code into the computer) I'm sorry, we can't take this book back.
    GEORGE: Why not?
    CASHIER: It's been flagged.
    GEORGE: (Confused) Flagged?
    CASHIER: It's been in the bathroom.
    GEORGE: It says that on the computer?
    CASHIER: Please take it home. We don't want it near the other books.
    GEORGE: (Outraged. Leaving) Well, you just lost a lot of business! Because I love to read!

  • That problem is now solved.
  • The only time I'd be using a tablet in the bathroom would be to flush it down the toilet.

  • Supposedly nineteen percent of people have dropped their phone into a toilet [cnet.com]. I'm still trying to figure out how, exactly, since it would seem you'd be holding the phone somewhat in front of the bowl - but I'm not sure I really want to know.

    Also, anecdotally speaking, in my experience it's not uncommon to hear people talking on the phone from bathroom stalls. BTW if that's you... yeah, I'm the guy who walks around flushing all the toilets during your phone call. I feel it's important the person at the other

    • I'm still trying to figure out how, exactly, since it would seem you'd be holding the phone somewhat in front of the bowl - but I'm not sure I really want to know.

      I guess a lot of people turn around and face the toilet to flush. They could fumble it then, when they pull up their pants and it falls out of a pocket or off the belt, or if they bend over to flush after putting it in a front shirt pocket

  • Is the iPad screen Chlorine safe? OCD minds would like to know.
  • Waste paper replacement! Now that would just be absurd.
  • "Ew."

    But I am surprised he hasn't yet added an iPad to his desktop Apple store.
  • This just in: popular computing tablets from Apple, Motorola and other leading companies are being used to access the so-called "Internet." The Internet, which is comprised of a series of tubes, provides access to many goods and services, including weather reports and "rooms" in which "users" can "chat."

  • I'm just waiting for a massive Cholera epidemic to break-out, spread by the fecal coliform carried on iPads and iPhones. Please wash your hands and iDevice before leaving the lavatory.

  • Fast food restaurants and coffeeshops offer free wifi as a reason.

    I'm honestly surprised that the intersection of 'starbucks goers' and 'tablet users' isn't larger.

  • As soon as I get interested in a doctor's waiting room magazine, the nurse calls my name. I think I'm going to actually be seen , so I leave the magazine in the waiting room. That's when I find out that it was only to cruel trick to get me to suffer waiting in a second room without anything to read.

    The iPad has solved this problem once and for all. (Not that I go to the doctor's office all that often, but at least now I carry my entertainment with me.) And I'm solving all of the Expert level sudoku puzz

  • I will not, will not point and click
    I will not, will not use my ...

  • When I was a parents basement dweller, I had a serial green screen terminal in near the toilet in my personal bathroom. I was using lynx, mutt and bitchX, on the toilet. If I was using a net connected terminal in the bathroom in 1994, the 2011 tablet usage pattern is totally unsurprising, however, back then lynx was surprisingly usable on the web .... now it is a nightmare almost everywhere except maybe http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] .

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