Slanted Toilets Are the Logical Extreme of Hyperproductivity

The toilet, as a technology, has been steadily improving. Indoor plumbing is far superior to chamber pots and outhouses, and automatic-flush sensors beat pulling a grimy handle manually. But a design concept that rapidly attained online notoriety this week brazenly suggested that the way to make toilets better is to make them worse.

The concept, called the StandardToilet, has a seat that’s set at an incline and lightly strains users’ legs, making it unpleasant to sit on for longer than five minutes  or so. The discomfort is intentional: The toilet gets people, especially workers, out of the bathroom (and off their phones) and back to whatever it is they’re supposed to, “the optimum angle of the gradient shall be between 11-13 degrees.” , though, covers everything from a gentle 5 degrees to a perilous 35, which would be like perching on a playground slide.