I used to take my laptop or Nokia N810 (remote shell over Wi-Fi with physical keyboard) with me to the bathroom. Nowadays there's cyberdecks, e-readers, ...

Just imagine, there was a person on #debian reading and taking a dump.

Just to reiterate: book good, e-reader bad. Phone good, smartphone bad. Scanning through a physical magazine good, doomscrolling TikTok bad.

Except it is about focused vs. diffuse mode of brain, and usually people underappreciate the latter. E.g. walking during a lunch break, thereby getting inspiration for work, is working. The same can be true for taking a shower, sporting, staring outside at the landscape or stars, or meditating. It will also empower your focused mode later on. And, the author's point seems to be a toilet break is a decent opportunity for this. I agree. On my previous job, I regularly sat for 10-15 min in late morning, and it inspired me. But you cannot force people to not take a device with them to toilet. I mean, unless you're working for NSA or something. Don't judge such, look at total performance / efficiency per hour instead. Or per USD spend on the employee.

As a former smoker, this is also what I appreciated about having a fag (in a time before smartphone and vape were common). Some missed the socializing. I hated that part. It seemed to be more like FOMO on gossip, little substance.