9 Reasons You Should Play Video Games While On The Toilet

1. No embarrassment when solid hits water

I’d have to say, in my nonprofessional opinion, that people make noise 99.9% of the time when going to the bathroom. For those of us who haven’t learned how to be fearless when making that first push with the stomach, this can sometimes be quite embarrassing. It definitely helps to take your concentration off of the task at hand and shift it to your mobile gaming device. Those incidents where you somehow managed to eat Taco Bell, McDonalds, and Steak n’ Shake all in a 24 hour time period will soon become a noisy issue of the past.

2. You won’t hurry yourself

Sometimes you’re in the middle of something when rudely interrupted by Mother Nature. Your first instinct might be to hurry up so you can get back to whatever was so important. By playing video games, that pressure all but disappears as you fight zombies with plants, connect pipes on a grid, or figure out how to get through that pesky door by searching a room for clues. Meanwhile, things take their course with the extra time that they should be allowed to have in the first place.

3. You attain valuable “you” time

There really aren’t many other places where you can guarantee that you’ll have a small space dedicated to your person. A place where you decide when it is time to give up said space. What a great escape from the outside world! Since you’re already not in a hurry (as explained in point number two), you are also receiving valuable “you” time. Relax and treat yourself with a favorite game – forget about the in-laws and their passive aggressive statements about you stealing their child away from them. This is pretty much a form of meditation.

4. You can educate yourself on current events

Ok this article is about video games, but obviously there might be other apps you can access while relieving yourself as well. One of my personal favorites is the BBC News app. I like to keep up with current events when I have those random intervals of time throughout the day that would otherwise be wasted, like waiting ten minutes for the next train. Why not use your bathroom time to do this as well? Is your conversation with Mr. Acquaintance going flat? Go to the bathroom and find a few topics on your phone in an instant! And speaking of conversation starters…

5. You can use it as a conversation starter

If the news has been relatively lame or the weather boring, this topic is something that will surely get some smiles, or weird looks, out of people. It immediately relaxes the formal, boring, “hi, how are you, where are you from” small talk, and puts things in a more fun, expressive, and less judgmental atmosphere. If you’re willing to talk about your bathroom habits freely, then others will feel safe being more vulnerable along with you, which makes people much more interesting and creates a better environment for everyone to enjoy.

6. It shows you can think outside the box

Let’s say you have utilized point number five, and decided to bring this up as a conversation topic. There may be a few naysayers, but not everyone can be as enlightened as you are, so forget about the haters. When I first started using this as a way to break ice in a stuffy situation, I was surprised at how many people actually didn’t play video games on the toilet. It just seems so natural. So by openly discussing it and listing all the advantages (see: this article), it lets others know that you can think outside the box, in addition to defending something you believe in.

7. It is no different than a magazine, and possibly more entertaining

This is one of the other arguments that can be made when defending your newly found conversation topic, and a very sound one at that. For anyone who thinks that this article is complete crap (pun intended), just remember that for ages people have brought reading material into the bathroom with them for the same purpose of idle entertainment while taking care of business. This is just proposing that the medium be transferred to a digital device, which is capable of an incredible amount more than a physical magazine. It also means you’ll be touching only your device, unlike the magazine sitting on the back of the toilet. How many people have flipped through those pages after wiping themselves?

8. You can use it as an excuse for having taken so long

Well, my average bathroom time has gone up quite a bit since I took on this superior way of life. And since some of these points were about openly discussing it with the general public, here is another that fits right in with that category. Imagine this: you’re at dinner and you have to excuse yourself. You come back way later than what would be normal for such a situation. “Are you alright? You were in there for a while.” someone asks with earnest, albeit embarrassing, compassion. Apologizing because you were playing video games is definitely a possibility of saving face in such a situation.

9. It is a perfect opportunity for creative thinking

This article exists because of the fact that I play video games while on the toilet. In fact that’s exactly what I was doing when the idea for the poem above entered into my head. If you’re relaxed, enjoying yourself, and are stress free from noise embarrassments, having that solitary “you” time mentioned in number three can really get the creative juices flowing.