How to save data on your smartphone

Here are some ways to save data on your smartphone.

In the days of social distancing, we rely heavily on our smartphones as we spend more time online. When were not watching hours of Youtube or TikTok videos, we are constantly switching between apps for entertainment and to stay in touch with friends and family. Currently, the average person spends more than 3 hours a day using their smartphones. Saving data is very important for most people, especially since many data plans are restricted to a certain amount. With that said, here is how you can save data.

Reducing the amount of time you spend on social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram will stretch out your data plan, however there are other tips you can use to significantly decrease data usage on your smartphone.

Disable background app refresh. You might be surprised to find out how many apps are active behind the scenes even when youre not using them. This uses up your battery life AND uses a lot of data. They carry out certain background tasks like automatically installing updates and syncing information. Automated app refreshing uses a large amount of data and is not crucial for your apps to run properly, so switching off automatic app refreshing is a great way to save data.

Here is how to do this on Android phones, go to Settings > Data Usage to see statistics on each apps data usage. If a certain app is using a lot of data, tap on the app and switch on the Restrict app background data button. This should stop the app from being updated automatically.

You can do this on an iPhone by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Switch off background app refreshing for any apps you want. You can also select for certain apps to only update when connected to WiFi.

Don’t select the desktop version of a website. When using your browser on your phone, be sure to only use the mobile versions of the website. Mobile sites are much more compatible for smaller screens and are not optimized for large files, videos or flash features often featured on desktop versions

.And of course, always use Wi-Fi whenever possible.