Tragedy of the Commons: Public Restroom Edition

One of the great tragedies of the smartphone era is just how attached the average user is to the device. Anywhere, anytime, people are glued to their little screens, seeking stimulations in the most mundane of situations. The propensity for people paying attention to smartphones rather than anything else around them has required local authorities to put up posters and warning signs to discourage their use under certain circumstances, lest aloof smartphone users unwittingly bump into others or worse, hurt themselves by absent-mindedly wandering into busy roads and railroads.

The smartphone has also made its presence felt in the unlikeliest of places, the public restroom stalls. Many people may think that the time sitting on the toilet to conduct their private business would be better utilized by multitasking, namely, scrolling through their smartphones. The result is that what used to be a 5-10-minute duration needed to finish the private business may now take double or triple the amount of time as people decide to sit on the toilet to look through news articles or Facebook feeds, even after the bowels have been purged of all its content.

What is most lamentable about those who occupy toilet stalls playing with their smartphones is the inconvenience it causes to those waiting for their turns at the stall. Even in the busiest of train stations, malls, and cinemas, the male restroom only has 4-5 stalls available for those who want to go #2. Given the sheer traffic in these locations, to ensure that everyone who needs to do their business can get it done on time requires each user to minimize the amount of time he occupies the stall and pass it to the next person who is struggling to hold. 

Yet, the urge to use smartphones on the public toilet is not entirely to blame for what seems to be a complete lack of compassion toward fellow restroom users. A better explanation combines the allure of smartphone usage with the economic concept of the "tragedy of commons." This concept is originally attributed to environmental economics, where it is used to describe how a public good owned by no private individual will be exploited by everyone maximally given that no one needs to be responsible for proper upkeep. This is most exemplified by the depletion of fish stock in our lakes and oceans.

But the same concept is also usable to the smartphone-in-the-toilet case. Without regulation, fishermen in the ocean would fish as much as they could knowing there are a limited number of fish because they expect others to catch fewer fish. Similarly, a toilet user would spend as much time as he wants sitting there knowing there are a limited number of stalls because they expect other users to finish faster and open up their stalls for those who are waiting. The result is that everyone simply scrolls his phone to his heart's content in the stall because no one in particular needs to be responsible for the welfare of those waiting.

Given the same underlying mentality associated with the tragedy of commons, the same regulatory action that governs fishing in the high seas should govern how people should behave in public restroom stalls. Rules stipulate when and how much each fishermen can catch every season. Such quotas need to be applied in the public restrooms, where clear signage and even clocks should be put in place to denote how long each user has been in the stall. Reminding all users of the upper time limit associated with stall usage would make anyone conscious about doing anything besides the most necessary business in the stalls.

Better yet, in the public restroom case, the governance of the upper limits on stall usage can be enforced by the users themselves. With rules and clocks in place, those who are impatiently waiting their turns have the legal justifications to knock on the doors of those who are occupying toilets beyond their allotted duration, without fearing the consequences of angry rebuttal from the occupiers. Clear rules as such would ensure that those waiting their turns are not entirely dependent on the not-so-forthcoming goodwill of the current users in vacating their stalls in reasonable times. 

Men hoarding public restroom stalls is but one small example of many tragedy of the commons situation in our daily lives. From small things like seats on buses and trains, to larger ones such as using universal healthcare for expensive treatment, there are many cases where public goods are freeloaded by individuals with no concern for others. Human nature of selfishness justify such behavior and make it impossible to avoid so long as people have the freedom to behave out of self-interest. To prevent more tragedies from becoming the norm, clear legal rules and regulations need to be put in place to ensure people act with the others', and their own, interest in mind.