World Toilet Day Yesterday, UK Study Reveals Lots of Loo Texting

By Reporter Wireless and Mobile News on November 20, 2008 12:19 PM

Yesterday was World Toilet Day. In the UK a philanthropic agency promoting the world's use of toilets Tearfund released interesting information on what people do while on the toilet. The research, commissioned by the aid agency, reveals that more than eight million people talk while they are on the loo - either on the phone or to their family - and one in five adults send text message.

Through their online survey, they found that 60 per cent of the adult British population occupy themselves with activities like reading, chatting, texting or meditating while on the loo. Great Britain's top three toilet habits are reading (39 per cent) texting (21 per cent) and talking (21 per cent).

They also found that " 51 per cent of the British population encountered at least one problem whilst going to the toilet in the past month, with problems ranging from having no loo roll to a broken flush"

The Welsh are the chattiest while on the loo - 28 per cent of the Welsh admitted to talking on the phone or to a family member compared to 18 per cent of Scots. Contrary to what you might expect only eight per cent of women engage in conversation with a family member compared to 12 per cent of men.

Unsurprisingly women are three times more likely to have to queue for a long time before using the toilet then men (18 per cent versus six per cent).

Thy note that the situation is much worse for 2.5 billion of the world's poorest people who don't have access to a toilet at all. Not having decent sanitation deprives people of human dignity, it also means that they are exposed to all kinds of disease.

Tackling sanitation along with providing clean water and good hygiene practices would reduce the 1.5 million child deaths from diarrhoea each year by 65 per cent. Tearfund has launched a campaign to highlight this injustice and is calling on world leaders to tackle the problem by creating a global action plan on water and sanitation by 2010.