this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
157 points (86.9% liked)
Showerthoughts
38900 readers
1147 users here now
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
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- 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
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It could also be solved by everybody always putting the seat up ...
But it won't because everybody not agreeing on one course of action is the more fundamental problem.
You're basically just saying "This disagreement could be solved if everybody would agree".
But seat (edit: I meant lid) down is more hygienic when you flush. It isv the morally situation superior position
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 keeps the fecal mist a little bit more contained.
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
It does make a difference, it means measurably less poo bacteria on places like your tooth brush
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
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?
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.
It’s a lot easier to clean the walls than the ceiling
☝️🤓
But I don't lick the ceiling...
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.
Sure, but not really the point.
I think the user meant to say "lid down"
seat down: easy for one group, slightly inconvenient for the other, unhygienic when flushing
seat up: easy for one group, slightly inconvenient for the other, unhygienic when flushing
seat and lid down: slightly inconvenient for both parties (but if it's consistent then you can build muscle memory), and hygienic when flushing
You are correct, I did mean lid down too
My point is, the entire problem is agreeing to one option in the first place. Which option you pick is irrelevant.
Well rather OP is pointing out that there is a third option that both parties nay consider to be a fair compromise, and thus be more likely to agree to.
It doesn't matter if there are 2 or 20 options.
But one option is hygienic, the other two are convenience. Fuck convenience, put the lid down and wash your hands, it's for everyone's sake