Which Social Media App Drains Your Battery Most?

You charged your phone overnight and your battery is at 100%. You're ready for your day of phone calls, texting, googling, and social media surfing, among the other things we all do on our phones as both instinct and routine in this 21st-century world. You feel you shouldn't have to carry a 100% charged portable charger with you because your phone battery is in tip-top shape and should last all day. That could be true — or it might not be true, depending on what apps you use most frequently, especially social media apps.

According to Uswitch, the more permissions an app needs to run properly or give you the best user experience, the more battery power it will need. For example, apps that want permissions to use your camera, your contacts, location, and even Wi-Fi will drain your battery faster than other apps that don't require as much to do their job well. Social media apps typically want permissions for most of those things, especially ones that use photo and video sharing to draw you in. PC Mag further explains that apps that offer a dark-mode setting — which most social media apps do — also put a drain on your battery.

According to Komando, both social media apps and dating apps are the biggest battery drainers you can add on your phone. In the social media category, Facebook and its sister site, Instagram, are the two biggest culprits in the battery-draining wars. After them come Snapchat, Likke, Twitter, and Tik Tok to round out the top 10. PC Mag explains that all of these apps use about 11 different phone features that run in the background whenever you have the app open.

However, there are still more apps that fall into a social category that can do a number on your phone's battery, including WhatsApp, a messaging app also owned by Facebook, which has rebranded as a part of "Meta." Others are YouTube, Skype, and Zoom. All of these apps help people connect and run other apps in the background, including camera and video features (via Komando).

Just because social media apps are a drain on your phone's battery, doesn't mean you have to limit your time with them. However, if you are not using them, you should close them completely rather than just minimizing them and allowing them to run in the background, according to The Muse. You might even be surprised to see how many apps are still running, even if you can't see them open on your screen. 

Other ways to make sure your battery has a longer life, even if you're running multiple social media apps at once, include turning down the brightness on your screen and turning your Wi-Fi connection off if you have a good data package from your phone provider. Disabling notifications on your favorite apps is another handy trick to keep your battery charged. While you might love seeing who responded to your latest tweet, your phone will stay juiced a lot longer if push notifications don't constantly turn the device on and off (via The Muse).