A blond woman using her smartphone on a bus at night
The internet is omnipresent nowadays. It’s in our phones, our computers, our fridges, and if Elon Musk is to be believed, it’s also going to be in our brains in just a couple of years. We need it to stay up to date with the news, communicate with family and friends, as well as buy groceries and other items. Without the internet, a lot of us would lose our full-time jobs, too.
We use it all the time, but do we really understand our data usage and how much it costs? Mobile data is being used on nearly every smartphone in operation right now. With social media getting increasingly video-centric, mobile games more sophisticated, and even the simplest of activities requiring a constant internet connection, our phones use up more data than ever.
So, how does that translate into your phone bill? Can you somehow control your data usage to save some money and still use your mobile network on a daily basis? In this article, we’ll dive into the most common usage scenarios to help you understand exactly how much data is being consumed by popular mobile apps.
How Long Will a Set Amount of Data Last You?
You probably already know how many gigabytes of data you can use each month. It’s specified in your prepaid package or any other phone plan you currently have.
For the purposes of this guide, let’s say you’re given 5GB of mobile data for the month. But exactly how long does 5GB last, and how can you stretch it to serve you for as long as possible?
Let’s take a look at the numbers for some of the most common mobile data use cases: social media, gaming, using the browser, and viewing videos.
Social Media
If you’re a heavy social media user, 5 gigabytes might not serve you for a long time, but that also depends on how you interact on these apps and which platforms you use the most. Here are some average data usage per one hour of social media browsing, broken down by app:
- TikTok: 840 MB per hour
- Instagram: 400-600 MB per hour
- Facebook: 80-160 MB per hour
- X (formerly Twitter): 360 MB per hour
- Snapchat: 20-720 MB per hour
As you can see, the numbers on some of these platforms can vary widely. This is because your total usage depends on how you interact with them.
Snapchat is perhaps the most interesting case out of the bunch. If you only use it to send Snaps to your friends and for the Chat feature, the app will use just over 20 MB of data per hour of usage. However, if you’re into watching Stories and interacting with the Discover page, then it can easily eat up over 700 MB of data in a single hour.
The same goes for Facebook – if you just scroll through your feed for an hour, you’ll only use up to 160 MB of data per hour, making a 5 GB data plan perfectly reasonable if Facebook is the only platform you engage with on a daily basis.
On the other hand, if you’re into video-centric apps, such as TikTok or Instagram (with a particular focus on Reels), then you can consider yourself lucky if you still have any data left of your 5 gigabytes after a week of using these apps for one hour every day.
Gaming
Contrary to popular belief, mobile games don’t eat up a lot of data. In fact, compared to social media apps, they barely use any of it at all! This is because most of the game’s content is already downloaded onto your mobile device.
Any online activity you partake in consists of sending and receiving data packages to interact with other players and the game’s servers. These weigh significantly less than pictures or videos loaded up by apps like TikTok or Instagram.
Here’s a breakdown of the average data usage of five popular, always-online mobile games:
- Genshin Impact: 27 MB per hour
- FIFA Mobile: 20 MB per hour
- Call of Duty Mobile: 35 MB per hour
- Candy Crush: 20-30 MB per hour
- Fortnite: 45-100 MB per hour
These data usage statistics pale in comparison to social media platforms. The most data-hungry game on our list, Fortnite, uses a tiny fraction of TikTok’s data demand. Therefore, even if you game on your phone with Fortnite eating up as much data as possible, that still gives you roughly 50 hours of gameplay on a 5GB package.
Browsing the Internet
As opposed to gaming and social media usage, simply browsing the internet on your phone, using Google Chrome, Safari, or any other browser will consume vastly different amounts of data for each person. This is because it’s all dependent on the types of websites you frequent and how much time you spend on them.
With that said, general internet browsing uses between 60-160 MB of data per hour, on average. This is regardless of the browser you have installed on your phone. Keep in mind that if you use any add-ons or extensions, they may work in the background and contribute to increased data usage.
Viewing Videos
Video streaming apps, such as YouTube or Netflix, are by far the most data-hungry applications you can use on a mobile device. Most videos on the platform load up in high definition and are significantly longer than your typical TikTok video or Instagram Reel. Here are the numbers:
- Netflix: 1 GB per hour (SD), 3 GB per hour (HD)
- YouTube: 480-660 MB per hour (SD), 1.2-3.7 per hour (HD)
- HBO Max: 700 MB per hour (SD), 3 GB per hour (HD)
YouTube stands out as the app that consumes the least amount of data, but it’s not far behind Netflix and HBO Max in this regard. Other streaming services, such as Amazon Prime or Viaplay, also fall between 1-3 GB per hour, depending on the video quality.
If you don’t have unlimited data on your SIM plan, it’s safe to say that you should steer clear of streaming series and movies on your phone unless you’ve pre-downloaded them on WiFi beforehand.
The Bottom Line
Now that you know how much data gets eaten up hourly by the most frequently used mobile applications, you can apply this knowledge to your own usage and decide on the kind of plan that would work best for you. Even if you have unlimited data, keep in mind that heavy usage also contributes to draining your battery much quicker. Therefore, being conscious of how your mobile data is used can not only help you stretch out your prepaid plan but also keep your device in good shape for longer.