Going on Facebook can be a treacherous affair. You lose concentration on what’s in front of you. You bump into things. And that white glare from your phone can’t be good for your eyes either. Add to that all the stupidity I constantly see posted on my feed. That can’t be good to anyone’s well-being.
But did you know Facebook might also be cancerous to your phone? It’s been a controversial topic since its appearance on our app stores. The app has been plagued with performance issues and battery problems on all devices. Is there truth to it? Recently, a Reddit user tested how his LG G4 would react after he uninstalled Facebook and its flurry of associated apps. The results were unbelievable. Apps opened much faster based on tests.
The essence of science is repeated results and observations. I tried the experiment myself to see if it was true.
For this test, I used my LG G4 that’s been in operation since July of last year. That’s a little bit more than six months’ worth of accumulating apps to test. I used DiscoMark to test the differences with and without Facebook’s apps on the system. The free benchmarking app is available for free on the Play Store. It tests how much time selected apps take to load. Users can also select how many times the test runs apps. It’s a real world assessment that means a lot more than abstract benchmark scores.
Before each run of the test, I rebooted my phone to reduce the factors which could taint the result. I did one while Facebook and its associated apps (in my case, Facebook, Facebook Lite, Messenger, and Page Manager) was in the system. I also did one after uninstalling all of these apps. The results are below.
Here’s how to interpret the results. Left is before and right is after. The numerical values correspond to the number of seconds it took to launch the app. By themselves, these values mean nothing since they are largely dependent on the type of app launched. The main focus is the comparison between before and after. As you can see, there is a marked difference once Facebook’s apps have been uninstalled.
In other words, all other apps ran faster once Facebook was uninstalled. In my case, the total time enjoyed almost a 33% decrease from before and after. What can account for Facebook’s effect on phone performance? Continuous background activity. Facebook’s apps run in the background even if they’re not the active app at the moment.
Despite the red flags this should illicit, uninstalling Facebook is hard. Filipinos love Facebook as much as they love selfies. If you absolutely can’t live without it the social network, there are a couple of alternatives you can try.
One is to access Facebook through an Internet browser. The interface won’t be as streamlined, but an upside would be the ability to use the messenger and manage your pages without needing a separate app.
Another is to use Metal, a free “Web wrapper” that allows access to both Facebook and Twitter. Basically, it’s like the Facebook minus all the bloat.
Regardless of which boat you fall into, uninstalling Facebook from your phone will lead to faster performance and longer-lasting battery.
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