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Why You Should Definitely Sit Your Butt Down On That Public Toilet Seat

Enough with the hovering. We're starting a revolution.

Carolyn Kylstra
by Carolyn Kylstra

BuzzFeed Staff

You're in public, and you've gotta go to the bathroom. To sit (with or without paper)...or to hover? That is the question.

It's a divisive topic, as you can see from a very important BuzzFeed poll:

BuzzFeed

For people who are firmly on Team Hover, the logic is fairly obvious: TOILET SEATS = GERMS EW.

So many germs.

So much gross.

BUT. Here at BuzzFeed Life, we care about facts and science. So we turned to an actual germ expert for answers.

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Kelly Reynolds, Ph.D., is the director of The Environment, Exposure Science and Risk Assessment Center at the University of Arizona's College of Public Health. She has conducted a ton of studies on the spread of germs in your natural environment, and is one of the leading experts in the field. And here's what she had to say about it:

"There are very few germs that can actually be transmitted from the seat to your skin," Reynolds told BuzzFeed Life.

When it comes to a public toilet environment, "the germs you should be worried about are the ones passed along the fecal-oral route, meaning they have to get to your mouth. There's very few things you can get as a skin infection [from sitting on a public toilet]."

Just to confirm that for you: "I am definitely in favor of people sitting on the toilet," she says.

Welp! That settles it then.

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Team Sit forever.