If you stop playing a game before finishing this article, it could be because of your smartphone use, scientists say.

People who spend more time on their phones are more likely to turn down larger, delayed rewards for smaller, more immediate gains, according to a recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE. A tendency toward immediate rewards, called impulsivity, has been linked to drug addiction, excessive gambling and alcohol abuse. In the new study, researchers found that excessive smartphone use is also linked to impulsivity.

"Our study shows that there is a significant relationship between actual smartphone use and impulsive choices, i.e., the longer someone uses a smartphone on average, the more he or she prefers smaller, immediate [rewards] over larger, delayed rewards," said Tim Schulz van Endert, a researcher at Freie Universität Berlin and co-author of the study, in an email interview. "Almost everyone now owns a smartphone and uses it intensively, so it is important to study smartphone use and its possible impact on the human mind."

The need to understand how phones influence behavior is growing as screen use becomes more frequent, Schulz van Endert said. People around the world spent an average of 800 hours using mobile internet last year, which is the equivalent of 33 days without sleep or a break, according to marketing and advertising agency Zenith.