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If you like to bring your phone to the bathroom, you might be more likely to develop hemorrhoids. That’s according to a new study published in PLoS One, which found that people who used their phones on the toilet were 46% more likely to have this gastrointestinal condition based on colonoscopy results.

Spending extra time sitting can restrict blood flow and compress the veins, increasing the risk of hemorrhoids. “The study is very timely, as cell phone use appears to be ubiquitous,” said Brian C. Jacobson, MD, MPH, a gastroenterologist with Massachusetts General Hospital and a spokesperson for the American Gastroenterological Association who wasn’t involved in the research. “It should be noted, reading any material on the toilet was also highly associated with hemorrhoids, so the issue is not smartphones per se, but spending additional time on the toilet,” he told Health.

Constipation was once thought to be the main culprit behind hemorrhoid disease, said Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH, the new study’s senior author and a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Now, researchers believe the condition is more linked to straining and changes in pressure that affect hemorrhoid veins. “Over the last several years, our thinking about hemorrhoids has really evolved,” she told Health.

While previous studies have examined how activities such as reading a newspaper on the toilet might affect hemorrhoid risk, the impact of cellphone use had remained an open question. To explore this, researchers analyzed the cellphone habits of patients visiting the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for a colonoscopy. They surveyed 125 people, each at least 45 years old, about how often they used their phones while on the toilet, and then compared this to their colonoscopy results.

The survey showed that 83 participants, or 66%, reported using smartphones on the toilet. This group was nearly seven years younger, on average, than those who didn’t use their phones, and they were less physically active overall. During colonoscopy, 43% of all participants had a visible hemorrhoid. After analyzing the data, researchers found that smartphone users and non-users had the “same levels of constipation, straining, and other factors, [but] the amount of time they’re spending [on the toilet] is very different,” Pasricha explained. While only 7.1% of participants who didn’t use smartphones spent over five minutes on the toilet, that was true for 37.3% of smartphone users.