What causes high data usage on cell phone? Everything explained

Looking at the question being asked on what causes high data usage on cell phone, I will first start by saying it all depends on the phone user and it’s internet usage.

I can’t use myself as an example for you simply because I may not be the type that stream a lot of videos Netflix, YouTube or any other video apps, while you can’t go for more than six hours without watching online video.

I may be the type that love to play high graphics online games like pubg, call of duty, Asphalt, etc while you don’t fancy gaming on your mobile phone not to talk of playing online games.

But you need not to worry as I will show you what causes high data usage on your cell phone.

Let’s proceed to that.

What causes high data usage on cell phone?

Mostly what causes high data usage on cell phone is streaming on high quality videos, downloading and uploading of files, making a video call and frequent updating of apps, etc.

This may be for my cell phone and yours might be different.

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To determine what causes high data usage on your cell phone, you need to perform a check and ascertain what consume data most on your cell phone.

What causes high data usage on android cell phone? To determine the apps and phone features that takes up a large amount of mobile data or data usage on your cell phone, you have to open the settings app on your android phone.

Tap on connections and scroll down a bit to data usage.

Open data usage and first you will see the size of data you have consumed so far in a given month.

what causes high data usage on cell phone

Look closely on your screen and you will see mobile data usage and Wi-Fi data usage.

Based on the means of internet connection on your mobile phone, you will have to tap on any of the two.

For example, I mostly use mobile data so I will have to tap on mobile data usage and it will display all the apps and phone features that used my data for the month so far.

what causes high data usage on cell phone

This will now show you what causes high data usage on cell phone or probably what consumed most of the mobile data plan on your cell phone.

If you are pissed off about the high data usage on cell phone, then you need to go through them and restrict some of the apps or phone features you deemed not worthy to take up your cell phone data plan.

Check what causes high data usage on on iphone: You have to open the settings app and tap on the section that says cellular.

On the next screen you will see a section that says Current Period, and if you look beside it you will see the total amount of data consumed so far for the month.

Below are the apps and phone features that consumed your cellular data plan for the month and from that you can attain what causes high data usage on cell phone.

If Youtube takes a large amount of your cell phone data plan, you need to run a check on your YouTube app and see if it is set on high quality pictures or data saver. 

what uses the most data on a cell phone plan

If your Youtube mobile app is set to higher picture quality, kindly set to auto or probably data if you are on a limited data plan and running short of data.

While what causes high data usage on cell phone, one should also look at auto download and update apps. These auto updates will run in the background as long as you have an active internet connection on your cell phone.

Playing high graphics online games

Let me use the likes of pubg and call of duty which I play the most on my android phone. If I happen to play these games for over an hour, I see them consuming 200mb of my mobile data and this is because their graphics are very high.

If i happens to play these games for more than three hours on a single day, I will end up spending up to 400mb on pubg and call of duty.

You may not necessarily know the exact amount of data these high graphics online games consume until you play them for over an hour.

Online video streaming

Do you know that streaming on Netflix for about an hour will take up to 600mb of your data plan on medium quality, and 1.2GB data on high quality and this is based on my experience.

Youtube will consume 300mb if set to higher quality picturea and 200mb on the recommended picture quality

Watching videos on Netflix, YouTube, other online movies, live sports, online music will definitely consume a good chunk of your cell phone data plan. Afterwards you got confused as to what uses the most data on a cell phone plan because your mobile data has been exhausted.

I vividly remembered a very good friend of mine that is addicted to porn videos back then at the University. He will spend close to five hours watching porn and every time he’s complaining that running short of data.

At the end of the month i checked his phone and found out that he consumed 120GB of mobile data, and 89GB went to a mobile browser he use to watch porn videos online.

Downloading, uploading and updating

This takes up a good chunk of data though it depends on the file size. You can’t be downloading a file size 2GB and to later complain that your data plan has be used up.

The question will be;

Who used uo your data plan?

That is simply you.

When you have lots of outdated apps on your mobile phone, it can take up to 2GB depending on their size to update the outdated apps. With this you will have a high data usage on your cell phone.

Browsing the internet

One may think that mere browsing the internet doesn’t consume lots of mobile data but I’m telling you it does especially if the website or web page has lots of high quality images.

A single page may take up to 10mb of your date and when you multiple it by number of times you visited other web pages and other websites with lots of images, then you will know the amount of data you are spending by mere browsing web pages.

This is why you see 5GB of data usage on your mobile browser without downloading or uploading files on the internet using the browser.

Video calling

Forget about voice call it doesn’t consume data at all based on my experience using whatsapp to make an hour voice call which consumed just 73mb of my data plan. However, when I made a video call for about an hour, I was surprised to see it took a huge 273mb from my data plan.

I first checked on the data balance before making the calls, and this also goes to Skype video calling.

Asking what causes high data usage on cell phone, first I will start by saying it is based on what you do on the internet that takes up large amount of data usage on your cell phone.

The less you use the internet, the less data usage you will get in a given month.

The more internet you use on your cellphone, the more data usage it will consume in a given month.

What uses the most data on a cell phone plan?

What uses the most data on a cell phone plan includes the likes of mobile browser especially when downloading large files with it, streaming videos online, video calling, and playing high graphics online games. 

This question differs from phone user to phone user and you only need to check your phone data usage to determine what uses the most data on a cell phone plan based on your mobile phone usage.

About Kennedy

I'm Amaechi Uchenna by name, a mobile tech enthusiast who love writing articles about tips and tutorials especially relating to gadgets.

1 thought on “What causes high data usage on cell phone? Everything explained”

  1. Very helpful article. I’m not tech savvy and have been trying to lower data usage on my new plan. It appears that “Mobile data” is the correct place to see accurate usage that begins and ends with my service perdiod. I’m still not sure why “Wi-Fi data usage” begins 11 days into my service period and extends into the next period and whether it affects my total GBs allowed. It’s very confusing. *sigh* Thanks for the info!

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