Question about mobile data usage and facebook

[Hyde Park Factor]

I've noticed over the last two months that my mobile data usage on my cellphone has increased significantly. It has nearly tripled and the main culprit seems to be facebook. All my other apps have pretty stable data usage patterns, facebook is the only one that has changed significantly.

I've been making a concerted effort to reduce my screen time on fb and so I feel like the increase in data usage is coming from their end, possibly this new AI Meta search thing? I've resisted using it, but I wonder how "invasive" it is.

Apologies if this is an elementary question, but technology left me behind quite some time ago

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Can you remove the app from your phone?

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

You may be using it less, but you may also be scrolling your feed quicker/more to get caught up on things. Facebook autoplays videos and displays photos - both of which use data - so if you're just whipping through your timeline, it's going to be sucking up all that data.

I believe you can go into the settings and shut off "autoplay video" as well as change the video quality, which will lower the amount of data being used.

 

[Hyde Park Factor]

@Lose Remerswaal I have the option to remove the app, but the warnings about other features not working properly if I do so put the kibosh on that. I've been manually logging in and out each time instead

@Kenny F'ing Powers I think you're onto something, I've definitely been watching more videos recently even though I'm trying to do less screen time.

Also, it's possible I didn't actually reduce my screen time as much as I intended to...I'm going to pay closer attention going forward and monitor my app usage more regularly.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Not sure I understand how removing Facebook would affect other apps?

 

[Hyde Park Factor]

Not sure I understand how removing Facebook would affect other apps?

Same, but I don't have the patience or inclination to deal with whatever they might be. Besides, I'm fine with having it on my phone, I just want to know about the increase in my data usage and whether it's them or me. As of now, I'm leaning towards me...I don't think I've cut back as much as I thought I did. Plus the videos.

 

[SumnerH]

Same, but I don't have the patience or inclination to deal with whatever they might be. Besides, I'm fine with having it on my phone, I just want to know about the increase in my data usage and whether it's them or me. As of now, I'm leaning towards me...I don't think I've cut back as much as I thought I did. Plus the videos.

Many video apps (e.g. YouTube) have an option to set them to show lower-resolution/lower-bandwidth video by default. If you're not picky (or have old eyes), that might be a way to save bandwidth easily.

 

[Hyde Park Factor]

Bump to update! Spoiler alert: it was me all along.

Once I started digging around in my phone settings I discovered that I was spending up to 35 hours a week!! on social media, mainly facebook. Just....no. I honestly had no idea i was spending that kind of time scrolling mindlessly and it was a bit of a wake up call.

So, using the parental controls, I'm giving myself 45 min each day for facebook. So far so good, I've honestly been enjoying finding something different to do when the timer gets down around the 10 minute mark.