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How long have you been in there?! A popular tourist destination in China has installed toilet timers. Reactions are mixed. (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/nottheonion

48 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A video recently shared on various Chinese news and social media sites shows a set of timers installed above a row of toilet cubicles in a female washroom, with each stall getting its own digital counter.

When a stall is unoccupied, the pixelated LED screen displays the word “empty” in green. If in use, it shows the number of minutes and seconds the door has been locked. ‘We won’t kick people out midway’

The original video was reportedly taken by a visitor who sent it to the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, a state-run local newspaper.

'We won’t kick people out midway’

The original video was reportedly taken by a visitor who sent it to the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald, a state-run local newspaper.

“I found it quite advanced technologically so you don’t have to queue outside or knock on a bathroom door,” the paper quoted the visitor as saying.

“But I also found it a little bit embarrassing. It felt like I was being monitored.”

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[–] Glowstick 62 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I mean, what problem are they trying to solve? And is long-sitting people really the main cause of that problem?

If a tourist destination is frequently winding up with people waiting for an open stall, and if the majority of people are in the stalls for what is considered a normal amount of time in their home country, then the actual problem is that the place simply doesn't have enough stalls and needs to add more

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (3 children)

if it shows hours someone likely died in there again. i think it's okay to knock and check on them.

[–] Viking_Hippie 15 points 4 months ago

I like your casual use of "again" here 😁

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well they either died in which case checking doesn’t help, or they didn’t in which case checking doesn’t help either.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well if you check and they died you can get the body out and then the stall is free again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Whether you make a policy of knocking on bathroom doors, based on that reasoning, should be based on whether you’ve actually experienced a stall shortage caused by undetected death in the stall.

[–] optissima 3 points 4 months ago

To not even consider being stuck on a toilet for that long, I'm jealous of your non-IBS digestive tract.

[–] Twentytwodividedby7 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I used to work at a movie theater and someone died once in the bathroom. So that is probably why

[–] Glowstick 1 points 4 months ago

That doesn't sound likely to be the reason. That's an extremely rare event that doesn't need a regularized solution. And visible timers is pretty much the least useful way to address that problem, instead of using standard emergency pull cords or even just an alert sound that rings after X minutes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My guess is it's for the women's restroom because when bathrooms are busy, most women just wait for a stall door to open and don't always bend over to look under the doors to see if they're even occupied. It's also probably hard to see from a distance if the stall is occupied or not and nobody wants to be the one to shamefully walk back to the line because they had to get closer to check.

[–] Glowstick 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Nah occupied/unoccupied status lights have already been in existence for a while. The new thing happening here is that they've added a visible stopwatch counter

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Oh I see! Yeah that is a bit strange