The smartphone has turned even the bathroom into a place of digital escape, raising wider questions about attention, relationships and the ability to disconnect.
For many people, controlling the amount of time they spend on their mobile phone has become a daily challenge. They use applications designed to limit screen time, activate warnings that tell them when they have exceeded a certain amount of use, or turn to initiatives such as Movimiento OFF, which encourages people to regain control over their relationship with technology.
Yet the struggle is not confined to the amount of time spent staring at a screen. It is increasingly visible in the way people interact with one another. “Es raro mantener una conversación de adultos sin que alguien pare para ver el teléfono”, Laura Sánchez, a member of Movimiento OFF, told La Sexta. It is rare, she said, to maintain an adult conversation without someone stopping to look at their phone.
The behaviour has acquired its own name: phubbing, adapted into Spanish as ningufoneo. The term combines “phone” and “snubbing” and describes the act of ignoring someone in order to look at a mobile phone. According to CITA, the Centro de Desintoxicación Especializado en Adicciones, the consequences can extend well beyond a momentary interruption. “El phubbing puede tener un impacto devastador en nuestras relaciones, ya sean románticas, familiares o amistosas”, the organisation warns. By prioritising the virtual world over the real one, it says, people send a clear message that what is happening on their phone matters more than the person in front of them. That lack of attention can generate resentment, conflict and distance.
Against this backdrop, another, less obvious consequence of smartphone dependence has emerged: the bathroom has become a refuge for using the phone.
As Guillemette Faure wrote in Le Monde, in a context where people increasingly accuse one another of digital addiction, the only way to escape the mutual reproaches can be to retreat to the bathroom. The same dynamic can occur in restaurants, family dinners or gatherings of friends. Leaving a phone on the table may be considered impolite, while openly consulting it can attract disapproval. The bathroom therefore offers a private space in which the phone can be checked away from the eyes of others. “El baño se ha convertido en un refugio para el uso del teléfono: si nadie te ve, es como si nunca hubiera sucedido”, Faure wrote.
The scale of the habit is reflected in a survey conducted by NordVPN to examine how common it is to use a phone while in the bathroom. Spain emerged as the country where the practice was most common among those surveyed. Almost 80 per cent of Spanish respondents said the habit was not unfamiliar to them. Some 42 per cent said they did it often, while 12 per cent said they did so only occasionally. More than half, 53.4 per cent, said they consulted social media while on the toilet.
The smartphone has also changed what people do with the time traditionally associated with the bathroom. Before smartphones, it was one of the few places where people might read several pages of a book, a magazine or a newspaper. The idea was sufficiently familiar for the expression “bathroom books” to enter common usage. Today, the phone has largely taken their place.
For some, that means checking social media or email. For others, the bathroom provides an opportunity to disappear into a spiral of doomscrolling away from the disapproving gaze of those around them. Even language learning can now take place there. Duolingo, aware of the habit, has promoted the idea that its application “works, even in the bathroom”. The company even launched toilet-paper rolls designed for language learning after finding that many users regularly turned to the application while in the bathroom.
There is also a physical dimension to the practice. Research led by gastroenterologist Chethan Ramprasad examined the consequences of smartphone use in the bathroom. According to the study, 37 per cent of people who used their mobile phone in the bathroom remained seated for more than five minutes, compared with 7 per cent of those who did not use one. The research concluded that people who used their phones in the bathroom had a 46 per cent higher risk of developing haemorrhoids than those who did not.
Maria Quevedo, director of treatment at Clínica RECAL, stresses that occasionally taking a phone into the bathroom has no clinical significance. The concern arises when the behaviour becomes automatic and constant. In such circumstances, she says, it may signal an excessive need to remain permanently connected.
The implications, Quevedo argues, are not solely physical. Psychologically, the behaviour can reflect increasing difficulty in tolerating moments of disconnection or even boredom. Every small interval in the day can become occupied by a screen, leaving fewer opportunities for the mind to rest or simply wander — something that also has an important role in psychological wellbeing.
For Quevedo, however, the central issue is not the bathroom itself, nor even the act of checking notifications there. What matters is why someone feels compelled to leave their partner or family in order to consult a phone when they cannot wait a few minutes.
“If una persona tiene que apartarse de su pareja o de su familia para consultar el móvil porque no puede esperar unos minutos, probablemente el foco no deba ponerse en el hecho de esconderse, sino en la posible pérdida de control sobre esa conducta”, she says. People with problematic habits may attempt to conceal them once those around them have noticed or criticised the behaviour. The concealment, she argues, can be a consequence of the problem rather than the problem itself.
That distinction also changes the purpose of a digital detox. Its objective, Quevedo says, should not be to prohibit mobile-phone use, but to recover the ability to decide when to use the device and when not to use it, rather than allowing impulse to determine behaviour.
The bathroom, in that sense, is only the most visible example of a broader shift. The question is not simply where people use their phones, but how they distribute their time and where they place their attention. A queue, a journey on public transport or a few quiet minutes can all become occasions to reach for a screen.
“The phone in the bathroom is not the problem in itself,” Quevedo concludes. The concern begins when people feel unable to sit on the toilet, wait in a queue, travel on public transport or spend a few minutes without consulting a screen. When those small, spontaneous spaces for disconnection disappear, she says, it becomes worth asking who is really making the decisions: the person or the mobile phone.
