My grandparents had like a basket full of magazines, comic books, etc beside the toilet. It was pretty good. They often buy weekly reader's digest and stuff like that. So it was usually new every time we visit.
We didn't have to poop back then. The act of pooping was invented by Larry Smartphone, who also happened to invent the smartphone. They were released together originally as a bundle but everyone has both nowadays anyways and you can mix and match.
Magazines, books, reading the backs of products, and sometimes people would even use a mirror or two to watch TV on the shitter.
We read a book or sat in silence with our thoughts. Most great ideas were created on the toilet.
I fully educated myself about tampon insertion and toxic shock syndrome during trips to the bathroom.
I was lucky enough to grow up through the gameboy-->DS era so I've always been covered
Well, before phones made social media conveniently available, people largely had to deposit their shit via telephone, written word, or in person.
We used to have words printed on paper (the pressed corpses of trees) called books, magazines, and newspapers. They'd bring one of those.
I'm curious how old OP is. I still keep a book in the bathroom. It's where I do most of my reading.
Bathroom books are absolutely a thing. My boomer aunt has dozens of Andy Capp booklets.
Farmers Almanac. Used to come with a pre-drilled hole for hanging on a hook in the outhouse.