this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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How is it more hygienic? I can't imagine that extra brim holding off a lot of the shit particles launched into the room upon flushing.
It doesn’t make your bathroom shit free or something but it does do this 🤷♀️
Not sure if it’s better or worse in any meaningful way tho
Edit: I assume commenter meant the whole seat including the lid but that could be a miscommunication
I was too quick, missed mention of the lid, that makes more sense 😄
I really doesn’t matter tho because poop particles are everywhere regardless of your toilet seat orientation.
While true, quantity of poop particles also matters.
Your body can fight off loads of bacteria. But once it gets to an infection point, it can't keep up and you become ill.
So yeh, poop is everywhere. As long as it's small amounts, it's fine.
The study where gustofwind got the illustration says it's around 10x reduction of deposited bacteria with the lid down.
https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(23)00820-9/fulltext#tbl0010
10x reduction doesn’t even make sense. It’s not possible to reduce by more than 1x, as that would be 100% of the bacteria gone.
And your link doesn’t support what you said at all.
Am I misreading something?
I'm not interested in their narrative, I'm talking about their numbers. They measured plaque formation - colonies - of bacteria from surface wipes around the toilet after flushing a contaminated toilet bowl. Depending on the location & lid state, they got, generally 10^3-10^6 plaques. 10^5 with the lid closed, 10^6 open, which is a 10x difference. There's no difference in the surfaces directly facing the bowl; hardly surprising that there's little contamination left by the time you get all the way to the walls - 1/r^2 effect. Look at the surface you sit on.
I’m much more interested in the conclusions and the meaning of the numbers, for two big reasons:
But how does it compare to what's already there? How does it affect the average toilet user's bacterial load, and how does that compare to an approximate threshold for infection?
House dust is up to 50% human skin particles. You're breathing in all sorts of crap, and outside I'm sure there's loads more including animal crap.
It’s a lot easier to clean the walls than the ceiling
☝️🤓
Clean both. Don’t clean both.
Still. The poop particles remain.
But I don't lick the ceiling...
yeah i get the picture but the real question is whether this whole topic is even worth discussing or whether the effect size is so small that it practically doesn't matter.
i mean, handbags and door knobs are some of the worst offenders to hygiene but you never see people getting all worked up about those topics, even though i suspect they're much more significant than whether the toilet lid is up or down. that's why i'm suspecting people are inflating a small issue into a big trouble here.
I don't give a flying f about the toilet seat (it's IMO a child level discussion, do what you like people), but I and my whole family do wash our hands when we come back from the outside. Always.
yeah i do that too.
It does make a difference, it means measurably less poo bacteria on places like your tooth brush
Mythbusters tested this and found no appreciable difference.
If you want a sanitized toothbrush, you'll need to use one of those UV cases.
It keeps the fecal mist a little bit more contained.