We're on our phones a lot. A study found that millennials check their phone an average of 150 times per day. We listen to our Spotify playlists, and toggle between scrolling through Instagram and watching cute corgi videos on Twitter, often all at the same time. That's a lot of data. And we're betting you're not always connected to Wi-Fi.
If you're looking to cut back on your data usage, look no further. We've compiled a list of tips and tricks to reduce those gigabytes and make the most of your phone settings (your battery will thank you, too!).
Click through to see how you can reduce your data usage, but in the spirit of the article, maybe save this to Safari's Reading List or your Pocket app for offline reading.
1. Understand Your Phone Usage
First and foremost, you need to assess your phone usage. What apps take up the most of your data (and by extension, your time)? A quick scroll through your settings – Settings > Cellular if you're an iPhone user and Settings > Data Usage for Andriod users – and you can find how much cellular data you've used during the current billing period and which apps are using the most.
2. Disable Background App Refresh
Using data is inevitable, but using it when you're not even looking at your phone is unnecessary. Turning off background app refresh is a quick and easy way to reduce your data usage. If you're an iPhone user, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh. For Android users, you'll have to turn it off for each app. Go to Settings > Data Usage then select an app and turn off "Allow background data usage."
Bonus, it'll also give a whole new lease to your battery life.
3. Disable Wi-Fi Assist
Wi-Fi assist sounds like a good idea. It tag teams with your cellular data to keep your signal strong and your videos buffering-free. But if you find yourself somewhere with a weak Wi-Fi signal, you could be relying on your data a lot more than you think. Your signal might be a little slower in places, but if you're trying to reduce your data usage, it's definitely worth it.
4. Decrease The Frequency Your Phone Checks For New Email
Let's be honest, email isn't our favorite app anyway. It's not the one we scroll through aimlessly for what we thought was five minutes, but was actually 30. Rather than your phone automatically checking for new emails every 15 minutes, set it to every 30 minutes. Better yet, set it so that it only checks when you do. Then you can decide the frequency based on whether you're expecting an important email or if it's the weekend and you don't really need to be reminded that there's a sale going on at your favorite store.
5. Download Your Music Instead Of Streaming
Whether you're on the subway, driving to work, or just running errands, listening to music is pretty much a given. Streaming platforms make it easy to download your playlists for offline listening, and it can really cut down on your data use. The same goes for podcasts. Depending on which streaming platform you use, it takes anywhere from eight to 17 hours to stream the equivalent of 1GB of data. A report conducted by Nielsen Music found that Americans spend an average of 32 hours a week listening to music. While that might not all be off Wi-Fi, it's easy to see how all that listening can add up.
6. Reconfigure Your Social Media Apps
If you really want to see how low you can go when it comes to data usage, you can individualize each social media app. For most of us, this is where the gigabytes really start to add up. For Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you can turn off auto-play, save high quality videos for Wi-Fi only, and turn off image previews. Just go to account settings for Facebook and to the individual app in your phone settings for Twitter and Instagram.
For Snapchat, you can toggle on Travel Mode in Settings. This will automatically reduce the data the app uses. You can also go to your Memories tab and turn off Smart Backup which will keep your phone from saving your memories when you're not connected to Wi-Fi.
7. Utilize Phone Usage Monitoring Apps
An app to make me use apps less? Hear me out. The ultimate – and perhaps most straightforward – way to use less data is to use your phone less. As someone who looks at their phone countless times each day without really registering the frequency, using your phone less is easier said than done. That's where an app comes in.
Apps like SPACE and Moment allow you to set your own goals whether that is total time spent on your phone or number of unlocks. They won't lock you out if you exceed your limit, but they will send you reminders when you approach or surpass your screen time goals and give you some insight into how you use your phone.
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