Poking around inside our nostrils is disgusting,
unhygienic and potentially harmful, so it’s
baffling that it’s as common as it is, says
Jason G Goldman.
Most of us do it, but few of us will admit to it.
If we get caught red-handed, we experience
shame and regret. And we tend to frown upon
others when they do it in public. I'm talking, of
course, about reaching up into your nostrils with
a finger in an effort to scrape out snot. Is nose-
picking really all that bad? How prevalent or
bad is it, really? And why (really, why? ) would
anybody ever decide to see what snot tastes
like?
The formal medical term used to describe the
act of picking one's nose is “rhinotillexomania”.
The first systematic scientific study of the
phenomenon may have been undertaken as
recently as 1995, by a pair of US researchers
named Thompson and Jefferson. They sent a
survey by mail to 1,000 adult residents of Dane
County, Wisconsin. Of the 254 that responded, a
whopping 91% of their respondents confessed to
picking their noses, while only 1.2% could admit
to doing it at least once each hour. Two
subjects indicated that their nasal mining habits
interfered with their daily lives (moderately to
markedly). And, to their surprise, two other
people reported so much nose picking that they
had actually picked a hole right trough their
nasal septum, the thin tissue that separates the
left and right nostrils.
It wasn't a perfect study; only about a quarter
of those surveyed responded, and those who
already had a personal interest in nose picking
may have been more likely to complete and
return the survey. Still, it underscored the
likelihood that nose picking, despite its cultural
taboos, is pretty widespread.
Young habit
Five years later, doctors Chittaranjan Andrade
and BS Srihari of the National Institute of
Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore,
India, decided to look a little deeper into nose-
picking. They reasoned that most habitual
behaviours are more common among kids and
teenagers than among adults, so it made sense
to survey younger populations rather than older
populations, to get a sense for how prevalent
nose picking might be. In addition, knowing that
the Wisconsin study suffered from a possible
response bias, they distributed their surveys in
school classrooms, where they would have a
much higher likelihood of getting a
representative sample. They focused on four
schools within Bangalore, one catering to
children from families of lower socioeconomic
status (SES), two whose students tended to
come from middle-class families, and a fourth
school where students came from higher-
earning households.
In all, Andrade and Srihari compiled data from
200 teenagers. Nearly all of them admitted to
picking their noses, on average four times per
day. That's not all that enlightening; we knew
this. But what are interesting are the patterns.
Only 7.6% of students reported sticking their
fingers into their noses more than 20 times each
day, but nearly 20% thought they had a “serious
nose-picking problem”. Most of them said they
did it to relieve an itch or to clear out nasal
debris, but 24 of them, i.e. 12%, admitted that
they picked their nose because it felt good.
And it wasn't just fingers. A total of 13 students
said they used tweezers to pick their noses, and
nine said they used pencils. Nine of them –
nine! – admitted to eating the treasures
obtained from their nose picking activities. Yum.
There were no differences according to
socioeconomic class; nose picking is something
that truly unites us all. There were, however,
some gender differences. Boys were more likely
to do it, while girls were more likely to think it a
bad habit. Boys were also statistically more
likely to have additional bad habits, like biting
their nails (onychophagia) or pulling out their
hair (trichotillomania).
Facial mutilation
Nose picking isn’t just a harmless activity,
though. In some extreme cases, nose-picking
can cause, or be related to, more serious
problems, as Andrade and Srihari found when
they reviewed the medical literature. In one
case, surgeons could not achieve complete,
lasting closure of a perforated nasal septum
because a patient couldn’t stop nose picking,
preventing the surgical site from healing. Then
there was a 53-year-old woman whose chronic
nose picking not only led to a perforation of her
nasal septum; she actually carved a hole into
her sinus.
And there was a 29-year-old man who had a
previously undocumented convergence of
trichotillomania (hair-plucking) and
rhinotillexomania (nose-picking). It forced his
doctors to coin a new term:
rhinotrichotillomania. His behaviour involved
compulsively pulling out his nose hairs. When
his hair pulling got too extreme, his nose would
become inflamed. To treat the inflammation, he
began applying a solution that had the side
effect of staining his nose purple. To his
surprise, the purple stain concealed his visible
nose hairs, making him far more relaxed. He
was actually more comfortable leaving the
house with a purple nose than with visible nose
hairs. His doctors, who succeeded in treating
him with drugs, describe his compulsion as a
manifestation of body dysmorphic disorder,
which is sometimes thought of as an "obsessive
compulsive spectrum disorder".
Nose for danger
Most of us can rest safe knowing that our
occasional, discreet nose picking is probably not
the pathological variety. It's interesting that
despite the fact that nail-biting and nose-hair
plucking are well-recognised manifestations of
obsessive-compulsive disorder ,
rhinotillexomania is generally not.
But that doesn't mean it's completely safe. In a
2006 study , a group of Dutch researchers found
that nose picking can help bacterial infections
get around. They discovered that nose pickers
at an ear, nose, and throat clinic were more
likely to carry Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in
their noses than non-pickers. Among healthy
volunteers, they found something similar: a
positive correlation between self-reported nose-
picking frequency and both the frequency with
which their nasal cultures housed the nasty
beasties, and the amount of S. aureus present
in those cultures.
So, given all these risks, and the potential for
provoking disgust in other people, why do we
still do it? There are no clear answers, but as
Tom Stafford wrote recently about nail-biting ,
perhaps it’s a combination of the simple
satisfaction we derive from ‘tidying-up’ and the
fact that our nose is within easy reach all the
time – in other words, we pick it ‘because it’s
there’.
Or perhaps nose picking is just evidence of
laziness. Fingers, after all, are never in short
supply when you feel the urge to clear your
nostrils. Which is more than can be said about
a box of tissues.
It's gratifying to know that some researchers
are still trying to understand the reasons we
pick our noses and the consequences that arise
from it. In 2001, the Indian researchers, Andrade
and Srihari, were recognised for their work with
an Ig Nobel prize, which is given for research
that first makes you laugh and then makes you
think. At the ceremony, Andrade remarked,
"some people poke their nose into other
people's business. I made it my business to
poke my business into other people's noses."

Source
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150202-why-do-we-pick-our-nose

Many are caught in this bad habit... seun, dominique, sissy3, lalastica abeg do the needful

Honestly the urge is freaking tempting. Especially when the nostrils are pretty stuffed up with pasty or semi solid mucus. Uhm... yummy!

Very educative, thks

I pick my nose especially when solid mucur is hanging in between and when it's not within the reach of handkerchief.....Infact I squeeze it well when am feeling as if a small ant is walking inside my nose...I remember those days when we were kid...the nasal discharge was our butter then,very sweet..

nickusoro:
Honestly the urge is freaking tempting. Especially when the nostrils are pretty stuffed up with pasty or semi solid mucus. Uhm... yummy!

O boy... nawa oh. u dey mix am with bournvita?

Yustash001:
I pick my nose especially when solid mucur is hanging in between and when it's not within the reach of handkerchief.....Infact I squeeze it well when am feeling as if a small ant is walking inside my nose...I remember those days when we were kid...the nasal discharge was our butter then,very sweet..

Kai!
Small ant walking inside your nose?
***faints***

nickusoro:
Honestly the urge is freaking tempting. Especially when the nostrils are pretty stuffed up with pasty or semi solid mucus. Uhm... yummy!

Yuck

ControlX:

Kai!
Small ant walking inside your nose?
***faints***

Lol..

I confess. I pick my nose, but not all the time.....

Na because of this u come write long epistles?

Lagusta:
I confess. I pick my nose, but not all the time.....

Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more...

idu1:
Na because of this u come write long epistles?

Oya lie dat uv neva picked ur nose, rolled it between ur fingers and enjoyed its "yummy" taste... yimu

ControlX:

Oya lie dat uv neva picked ur nose, rolled it between ur fingers and enjoyed its "yummy" taste... yimu

Everyone pick nose weda with hanky or finger. If not how do u clean ur nose?
I clean my nose in d morning(b4 shower) b4 I leave the house.
What irritates me is d way some pple pick in public places, as in they will just be digging like they're digging 4 gold. Gosh

Wendy80:
Everyone pick nose weda with hanky or finger. If not how do u clean ur nose?
I clean my nose in d morning(b4 shower) b4 I leave the house.
What irritates me is d way some pple pick in public places, as in they will just be digging like they're digging 4 gold. Gosh

Dont you know that was how the first gold was discovered?

We pick our nose because there is beans inside.
But seriously who doesnt?
Why walk about with layers of hard mucus in your nostrils when you can simply sink your forefinger in there and get relieved? But i believe we should do it hygienically with a handkerchief.
For those of you chanting yummy, one day y'all will get served a full plate of dried mucus in your dreams
Cc seun, sissy3, dominique, lalastica... this should get to front page. Will help lotta NL folks

I just did intact with my mouth opened

ControlX:

U know when u put in the nose, it will be sweeting u, and u wanna pick the one right in the corner, unkowningly u raise the nose. That sweetness makes u open mouth

Try it

Dyt:


U know when u put in the nose, it will be sweeting u, and u wanna pick the one right in the corner, unkowningly u raise the nose. That sweetness makes u open mouth

Try it

Orisirisi...

Yustash001:
I pick my nose especially when solid mucur is hanging in between and when it's not within the reach of handkerchief.....

ewwwwww raised to power one hundred million