How Facebook and Messenger Apps Drain Phone’s Battery

For iOS and Android devices, the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps use a lot of battery power. Authorities and analysts conducted tests in addition to receiving complaints from people all over the world. And when the apps aren’t in use, they say that both drain the battery.

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How Facebook and Messenger Apps Drain Phone’s Battery

If you’re hoping to fix this problem with a battery saver and performance booster app, it’s unlikely to succeed. So, what are your options?
How Facebook Makes Use of Your Processor and Battery
When using the apps and when the apps are idle and expected to be dormant, the battery drain and output penalty occur.

Facebook accepted the issue and remedied it in part. The solution, however, does not seem to be satisfactory. The problem, according to Facebook’s Ari Grant, is caused by a CPU spin and poor audio session management.

The process that makes a CPU spin is very complicated. Your smartphone’s microprocessor is known as the CPU. It handles (runs) threads, which are tasks that running programs or apps must complete. The CPU serves several apps or threads in a way that appears to the user to be simultaneous (which is the fundamental concept behind multitasking devices—those that run multiple programs at the same time), but it only does so for a short period of time, taking turns with the threads.

Until being serviced by the CPU, a thread always waits for something to happen, such as user input (such as a letter typed on the keyboard) or data entering the machine. Many other applications, like the Facebook app thread, stay in this busy waiting state for a long time (for example, while waiting for an event related to a push notification). It also keeps querying and polling for this case all the time, keeping it alive but not doing anything useful. This is a CPU spin, which uses up battery power and other resources, lowering performance and decreasing battery life.

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Multimedia wreaks havoc on your battery

The second issue emerges after watching multimedia on Facebook or engaging in audio-based communication, in which bad audio management results in waste. The audio function stays open after you close the video or call, allowing the app to use the same amount of resources in the background, including CPU time and battery power. However, it does not produce any audio quality, and you do not hear anything, which is why you are unaware of it.

Following this, Facebook published updates to its apps that resolved the issues in part. But, first and foremost, make sure your Facebook and Messenger applications are up to date. However, recent performance and metrics, as well as mutual user interactions, suggest that the issue continues.

It’s possible that there are more issues with the app running in the background. Several other parameters, including the audio, could have been badly handled. Services (background device software) run in the background of your phone’s operating system, serving as facilitators for the applications you use. It’s possible that inefficient Facebook app management creates inefficiencies throughout the other applications. This way, efficiency and battery metrics don’t only indicate irregular Facebook use, but also those of the other apps. As the source of the issue, the Facebook app could spread inefficiency to other auxiliary device applications, resulting in overall inefficiency and abnormal battery usage.

What Should You Do?

Keep your Facebook and Messenger applications up to date in the hopes that Facebook’s partial solution will work for you.

Uninstalling the Facebook and Messenger apps and accessing your Facebook account through a browser is a better choice in terms of results. It will work similarly to your machine. It won’t have the finesse that the app does, but it will help you save at least a fifth of the battery life. Additionally, use a lighter browser that uses the fewest resources and stay signed in to it. Opera Mini is one such example.

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