Other countries, with shorter work hours, higher wages, generous paid sick and family leave and as much as a month of paid vacation every year are actually as productive per hour (France), or more (Norway), than the United States, according to annual charts of GDP per hours worked put out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And at a time when we need to be more creative and innovative - I think the word du jour is disruptive - as the very technology we take into the toilet remakes our economies and societies, working everywhere, all the time, at all hours, at the desk, in the car, distractedly walking down the street or sneaking off to the restroom stall, is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Why? Because neuroscience is discovering that our brains are wired for new ideas, breakthrough thinking and inspiration to arise in a break from the constant grind of work.
In the pauses, at the least expected times, often when we're doodling, daydreaming or even mindlessly perusing the goofy toilet trivia, the back of a shampoo bottle, or the colourful graffiti scribbled all over the bathroom walls, the a-ha moment alights.
We're calm and relaxed. Our brains are idle. And something lights up called the Default Mode Network, which, like airport hubs, connect different parts of our brain that typically don't communicate. That's when a stray thought, a random memory, an image, can coalesce into a strange, wonderful and wholly original stew.
Author J.K. Rowling stared out a train window for four hours and the entire plot of the Harry Potter series "fell into" her head, she's said.
The point is, toilet habits have changed as societies have changed. In the ancient world, toilets were often a place for socialising, as high-status men sank their tushes into communal marble toilets with as many as 36 seats. European kings - and famously, LBJ - conducted business on the throne while doing their business, a sign more of their power than their drive to be productive, writes Bob Cromwell, a Linux coder and self-proclaimed Toilet Guru.
But never before, he says, have we seen work creep so far into every nook and cranny of our lives, even the privy, as a result of technology.
"I'm always struck, the minute you get out of an airplane, everybody heads to the bathroom and starts making calls and checking their phones. I mean, how urgent are all these calls, really? It's a quality of life thing, to me," he said.
"Sometimes, when I hear a disembodied voice talking in the stall, I'm happy to say in a really loud voice, 'He's talking to you sitting on the toilet!' I figure I can get away with it. It's not like they're going to get up and run after me."
Brigid Schulte is author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love & Play When No One Has the Time, an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post, and a fellow at the New America Foundation.
- Slate
