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How much data does instagram use per minute


Instagram Mobile Data Usage Explained – Canstar Blue

With one billion people using Instagram each month, this top-tier social media app has taken over the world with its image-first, captivating design. People are loving the easy-to-use and aesthetic layout, as Instagram’s popularity grows each year. While looking at your friend’s new posts and Instagram stories can be fun, the data used in the process can potentially wreck your mobile plan. But just how much data does Instagram use, and can you reduce your data usage? Canstar Blue dives in to investigate…

How much data does Instagram use?

There are no official figures from Instagram in terms of data usage, so we decided to find out ourselves. Using an iPhone 8+ and the Data Tracking feature, we found that, on average, continuously scrolling for five minutes used about 33MB of data, meaning using Instagram for an hour could use around 400MB of data. Here’s what we found:

Minutes on Instagram Mobile Data Used
5 33. 5MB
30 201MB
60 402MB
90 603MB

Estimates only. Based on data tracking settings via iPhone 8+ phone.

As these are just estimates, additional factors such as download speeds, service provider, what you’re actually downloading (e.g. videos and images) and other applied settings may also impact the overall data usage. To find how much data Instagram and other apps are using on iOS, simply go to Settings, click the ‘Mobile’ tab and scroll to the bottom to see your downloaded apps and their data usage.

How do you use less data on Instagram?

By default, Instagram’s settings pre-load videos so they’re available for playback as soon as possible. If you are wanting to save on data when using Instagram, look below on instructions for turning on the Data Saver Mode.

  1. On Instagram, go to your profile and tap on the three horizontal bars
  2. Tap ‘Settings’
  3. Tap ‘Account’ then go onto ‘Cellular Data Use’
  4. If your ‘Use Less Data’ (iOS) or ‘Data Saver’ (Android) button is turned off, toggle it on to start saving data

Using this mode will not affect the default Instagram settings when you’re connected to Wi-Fi. If you’re on Android you could also choose when Instagram will show you high resolution media, as the settings range from ‘Never’, ‘Wi-Fi Only’ or ‘Cellular + Wi-Fi’ to suit your needs and how much data you have to play with.

What’s the deal with Instagram and data usage?

As Instagram continues to evolve with millions of diverse accounts, from start-up businesses to model influencers, the social media giant keeps taking leaps and bounds to provide the world with a fun and entertaining way to keep in touch with friends, promote your content and more. Instagram’s visual take on the world of social media is continuing to excite the younger generations as the simple, captivating user-friendly design has people spending large chunks of their data. If you love Instagram but want to save on data, checking out the Data Saver options may save you feeling #sad – or you can always check out unlimited data plans to keep you going strong on the gram.

  • Postpaid Phone Plans
  • Prepaid Phone Plans

Here is a selection of postpaid plans from Canstar Blue’s database with a minimum of 10GB of data, listed in order of standard cost, lowest to highest, then by data allowance, largest to smallest. Use Canstar Blue’s phone plan comparison tool to see a wide range of plans on offer from mobile providers. This table includes products with links to referral partners.

Here is a selection of prepaid plans from Canstar Blue’s database with a minimum of 10GB of data, listed in order of standard cost, lowest to highest, then by data allowance, largest to smallest. Use our comparison tool to see a wide range of plans from other providers. This table includes products with links to referral partners.

Photo credits: Bourmen Japet/shutterstock.com, ArthurStock/shutterstock.com

How Much Data Does Instagram Use?

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Feature

Worried about Instagram using up all your data?

By Martyn Casserly

Contributor, Tech Advisor

Foundry

Instagram can be an addictive app.

Gone are the days when it was just a repository for still images of people’s dinners and summer holidays. Now, there are live streams, stories and other features that can soon eat through your data plan if you’re not careful.

But how much data does Instagram actually use? We don our white lab coats and run some experiments.

How much data does Instagram claim to use?

There are no official figures available directly from Instagram, so we don’t know what to expect when it comes to data usage through the app.

But how much data does a normal feed use on Instagram use?

To test this out we downloaded a data usage monitoring app and set it to zero. Then, with a timer set for five minutes, we browsed our Instagram timeline, trying to focus mainly on still images. This, of course, is next to impossible now that videos are all over the app, so the results we obtained are a mixture of video and stills, which is a better real-world test case anyway.

When the timer finished, the amount of data that had been consumed by Instagram after 5 minutes was around 50MB. Extrapolating from this figure, we deduced the follow usage figures (when mainly viewing still images):

  • 15 minutes = 150MB
  • 30 minutes = 300MB
  • 45 minutes = 450MB
  • 1 hour = 600MB

So, if you spend an hour a day on Instagram, you’ll have used up 4. 2GB of data (600 x 7) by the end of the week. Do that across a month and you’ll rack up around 16GB.

How much data does uploading photos and videos to Instagram use?

Obviously, most people don’t just consume content on Instagram but also upload their own. This can be a bit more difficult to accurately estimate (as we have different cameras, file sizes and quality), but it as a rule of thumb uploading a photo will use around 2MB of data. It’s more for video, with around 8MB for a quick story. It’s safe to say then that if you’re uploading videos all the time, you’ll soon start to edge towards the limits of your data plan, especially if you’re also an avid scroller through the Instagram feed.

How to lower your use of data on Instagram

If you want to lower the amount of data Instagram uses, there are some settings you can adjust to achieve this.

First, Instagram pre-loads videos in your feed to ensure that everything works quickly. You can prevent this from happening so that the data consumed is less. The trade-off is that videos will take longer to load when you’re on a mobile connection.

Here’s how to adjust the settings in the Instagram app:

  • Tap on your Profile picture in the bottom right corner of the screen
  • Tap the three horizontal lines in the top right of the screen
  • Select Settings

Foundry

  • Next, tap Account followed by Data Usage (iPhone) or Mobile data use (Android)
  • From the menu, choose Use less mobile data (iPhone) or data saver (Android)

Foundry

If you’re an Android user, then you also have the option of limiting when Instagram serves high-resolution content. This means you can have lower-res stuff when on your mobile connection, then full resolution when you get back to a Wi-Fi connection.

To use this feature, tap the High-Resolution media option that’s under Data Saver. Then select from Never, Wi-Fi only, or Mobile + Wi-Fi.

Foundry

You can always adjust these setting again later if your circumstances change.

If you’re thinking of changing your contract so that you get more data, be sure to read our roundups of the best phone network and best pay-as-you-go phone network to make sure you get the best deal.

Author: Martyn Casserly, Contributor

Martyn has been involved with tech ever since the arrival of his ZX Spectrum back in the early 80s. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews for Macworld and its sister site Tech Advisor.

how to moderate the appetites of your favorite mobile applications

Mobile Internet is a useful and fun thing exactly as long as the traffic consumption fits into some expected norms, and you don’t have to pay quite unpleasant amounts for the mega- and gigabytes that have arisen from nowhere. Every mobile user knows a lot of ways to save money. But we still recall that one of the most effective is still the method of forcibly limiting the amateur activity of mobile applications.

What applications? Well, obviously, the same ones that you and we also use every day. After all, the more often and longer this or that mobile program works, the more traffic it “eats”.

That's why Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, Snapchat and YouTube are our very mobile companions that we need to be more careful with. To avoid, so to speak.

So, in a nutshell, how to set up these applications and reduce traffic consumption on your smartphone and/or tablet.

Further - in order:

If you read your facebook every 5 minutes from your mobile, then the traffic, of course, will leave faster, but not so critically. But if every 5 minutes you go to fb and at the same time allow the application to automatically turn on the video, then the traffic will not go away, but fly away. Bullet.

And to prevent this from happening, in the fb application, you must either enable video autoplay only when connected to a WiFi connection, or disable this option altogether.

This is done as follows:

  • open the Facebook application, go to the settings menu;
  • there we select " Application settings " and then - " Autostart ";
  • now we choose at our discretion: either “ Wi-Fi only ”, or “ Disable video autoplay ”.

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If you also spend a lot of time on Twitter, then you also need to be more likely:

  • go to the Twitter application, then go to " Settings ";
  • in the section " General " tap " Data ";
  • and on the next screen, tap " Auto play video " and select " Wi-Fi only " or " Disable auto play video in feed ".

In Instagram, as you probably already noticed, in addition to photos, there is also a video that also likes to be included without permission. That is, the application first downloads the video file and then starts playing it as soon as you scroll the tape to a certain place.

Plus, the pre-loading of files in the Instagram application is turned off quite cleverly, but it is still turned off. To do this:

  • open the Instagram application, go to the profile and there - in “ Settings ”;
  • in the section " Settings " we find and tap " Data usage in the cellular network " and in the next window we activate (do not turn it off, but turn it on) the option " Use less data ".

The video auto-play feature will still not turn off, but the app will only preload files when connected via Wi-Fi and not via a mobile network.

Of course, through the mobile Internet without preloading Instagram videos will not play so fast, but you will stop wasting traffic on unnecessary videos.

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Mobile YouTube is known to not automatically play videos if this option is not enabled. And this is good. On the other hand, the program simply plays the video, regardless of how the mobile device is connected to the Web, it does not matter wifi or cellular communication. And this is worse.

But the YouTube application has an option to play HD video only via Wi-Fi, so the traffic problem can be partially solved with it:

  • open the YouTube application, go to " Settings "(3 dots icon in the upper right corner) and there - in" General ";
  • then turn on the option “ Data saving ”, and HD video will be played only via wi-fi.

By the way, if you not only watch videos on YouTube, but also upload your videos there, then right there in the settings you can tap "Download" and choose to download videos only via wi-fi.

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Spotify's endless online music catalog is interesting and tempting, but if you use the app on its own, it will generate traffic.

However, for premium subscribers (who also have a lot of free memory on their smartphones), the Spotify service provides the ability to download albums and playlists to listen to them offline without the need to use mobile Internet.

To do this, when viewing an album or playlist, simply turn on "Available Offline", after that the selected files will be copied to the device's memory and then they will not be played in streaming mode, as usual, but locally.

In addition, you can also adjust the quality of streaming audio in Spotify. Open Settings, tap on Streaming Quality and select one of the four options - Automatic, Normal, High or Extreme.

In cellular mode, it's more logical to choose Normal, since in High and Extreme the quality of the stream, and hence the traffic consumption, will be much higher.

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Like Instagram, the Snapchat app preloads data that is then displayed as you scroll through the feed. Moreover, this data is loaded a lot.

To partially solve the problem of traffic, Snapchat has a special function "Travel Mode". If you activate it, then snaps and stories will be loaded via the mobile Internet longer, but in much smaller volumes, i.e. traffic will be saved.

This mode is activated as follows:

  1. open the Snapchat application, swipe up and down to open the profile screen;
  2. in the upper right corner tap " Settings ";
  3. in the section " Useful services " click " Configure ";
  4. enable " Travel mode ".

Something like this:


we doubt Mediscope and Forbes data - Social networks on vc.ru

4079 views

Hello, this is Nastya Uminskaya from @hooglink . 5 months have passed since the blocking and the great exodus of social media users. But intelligible analytics were brought up only now. How relevant is it and what do these numbers say? Let's figure it out in the article.

Mediascope calculated the audience of social networks in Russia especially for Forbes.

What do the extremists have?

  • The audience of banned Facebook decreased by 8 times in January-July, and Instagram by 4 times.
  • Mediascope separately calculated the total reach and the reach with a session longer than 5 minutes, because social network visits without VPN greatly spoiled the statistics.
  • By March, Instagram had 30 million users, in April already 14. 2 million, and in July 10.6 million.
  • If we count sessions longer than 5 minutes, then in March, Instagram coverage fell to 16.9 million, by April to 6 million, by July to 5.5 million.
  • On Facebook, the audience fell to 1.9 million in July, and if you count only sessions longer than 5 minutes, then to 305,000.

Criticism of approach

The head of Roskomsvoboda noted that many Russians use VPNs. Mediascope insists that it "sees the whole picture of media consumption" because the data is collected using "technology".

What kind of unique technology, however, was not explained to readers. It is not clear how technically it is possible to take into account all users of all VPNs. If you are aware of this methodology or know the tools, please share in the comments.

So far, according to the Ministry of Digital Development, 20% of Russians use VPNs, and this is traffic that actually cannot be counted.

Alternative viewpoint

LiveDune published its study at the end of June with data up to and including May.

This study compares the reach of posts and stories of bloggers. Posts have a serious drop, but you need to understand that Insta aggressively experimented with the format. And users, led by Kim Kardashian, were not happy about this, to put it mildly.

By May, post reach had halved, but Stories reach had not changed that much: only 25-30%. Moreover, large bloggers suffered the most, and micro bloggers even managed to grow a little. For brands, reach in Stories remains at the level of 70% by May.

As for the number of active subscribers, their number has decreased by 15-20%.

Of course, the statistics of blogger and brand accounts are not equal to the actual statistics of users. Insta has long become a "people's" social network, not only users from Vkontakte, but also from Odnoklassniki came here.

And many of them, to spite marketers, use the social network for its intended purpose: as a means of communication with their acquaintances. True, they also received advertising from the disabled advertising account.

This part of the audience with a high degree of probability fell off in March and left to share photos of flowers and grandchildren in chats. But they were not included in the statistics from LiveDune either before or after the blocking.

The study also noted an increase in activity among large bloggers. They sought to retain the audience and monetize it. In addition, many advertisers, left without the usual tools, rushed to enter into direct contracts with bloggers. And all this influenced the burst of activity.

Well, the main argument: LiveDune looked at the traffic of Russian-speaking bloggers, but there is no information about the geography of their audience in the study. And interpreting statistics without this breakdown is difficult.

So the truth is somewhere in between.

How has the audience of non-banned social networks changed

Here Mediascope gave quite expected numbers.

  • Telegram has increased 66% of its audience since the beginning of the year. In January there were 25 million people a day, and in July there were already 41.5 million. The main influx of audience happened in March, however, we all could notice it. It was in March that the audience increased to 40.6 million. Further growth became natural.
  • VKontakte met 2022 with 46 million daily users and grew to 50 million by July. A surge in the arrival of newcomers was also in March.

The administration of VKontakte explains such a small growth by the fact that they are already the most popular social network in Russia. True, the fact that almost all Russians have an account there has nothing to do with activity on the site. She has completely passed into passivity.

The situation with Telegram is more interesting. Insta-bloggers actively tried to get there. It suddenly turned out that the format is not the same, and Telegram is good for expert content, not lifestyle.

On the other hand, banned media found refuge in Telegram. Since the end of February, the messenger has become the main platform for thought-scrolling and news consumption. Now it is convenient to read publications of blocked resources through it. An alternative for such media is email newsletters. For example, Meduza makes them through Kit. But Roskomnadzor is on the alert and may begin to take action.

But Telegram has already proved its resistance to blocking.

Dry residue

  • The audience of banned social networks has fallen, but, according to our empirical feelings, by much less than four times. Both creators and consumers of content have something to catch there. And since July, users have been returning to Insta. Major bloggers are growing in reach.