There’s nothing like that sinking moment in your stomach where you start using your cell phone and realize it has begun slowing down. If you feel as if you can’t accomplish things on your phone as quickly as you used to, you’re likely not just paranoid: it does happen, and it happens eventually to just about every phone.
So if you’re wondering ‘why is my phone slow and what can I do about it?’ you’re certainly not alone. Luckily, there are fixes you can employ if you take the time to learn about why phones slow down, to begin with.
Need more information? Read on and we’ll walk you through what you need to know about your phone, whether it be android, iPhone, or otherwise.
Table of Contents
Why Is My Phone Slow?
It’s frustrating to have to wait an extra long time to see an app open or a text message get sent. We expect our phones to be speedy little devices, connecting us with everything near-instantly, all of the time.
This doesn’t end up being the case, of course, and within a few years nearly all phones end up slowing down somewhat. Why is this?
In a lot of instances, it has to do with space. The older a phone gets, the more it tends to get filled up with all kinds of data: applications, e-mails, photos, texts, and so on.
All of this data can wear down the processing speed and power of the phone, making it difficult to run as quickly and smoothly as it once did. The less free space you have on your phone, the more difficult your phone’s software will find it to run smoothly.
If you get down to zero available space, you could find yourself running into some pretty serious operating issues.
In addition, older phones don’t have the hardware that newer phones have. As operating systems and applications continue to get upgraded, your old phone begins to fall behind. It might not be able to handle all these changes as well as the new phones can, resulting in laggier behavior during use.
The same goes for new network updates that provide faster speeds. It’s often hard for older phones with less updated software to take advantage of these changes.
How to Speed Up Your Phone
If you are experiencing laggy behavior on your cell phone, it might be driving you crazy. You might be uncertain of what the cause is: is it just age, or is there something else behind the issue?
If you’re testing a mobile app it might cause you great worry, as you can read about in this article. Even if you’re just browsing the web, it can be frustrating.
What should you do if you run into this issue to help resolve it?
Create More Storage Space
As we mentioned, one of the main reasons phones tend to run slowly is because there is not enough space left up on the phone. Clearing out unused applications, files, text threads, and videos can help to make your phone run a lot smoother.
Flip through your apps: are there ones you haven’t been using in quite some time? Maybe it’s time to get rid of them and clear up a little more space.
You can actually see where most of your phone memory is going on an iPhone and can use this information to help rectify the issue. Go to settings, general and then iPhone Storage.
There are options here that can help mitigate the overuse of space on your phone. There’s an offload unused apps function and a function that will allow you to get rid of large attachments from your text threads.
You might also want to utilize the option here that allows you to clear your web history and web data, as cookies might be taking up a lot of space on your phone as well.
On Android, you should be able to do similar functions under Settings and then Storage.
Stop Background Applications From Loading
What else might be slowing your phone down? Having applications constantly running in the background of your phone is going to eat up a lot of operating power. If your Twitter app is constantly updating the feed even when you’re not using the app, it’s going to contribute to an overall slower functionality.
In order to stop your applications from doing this, you can go to Settings, General, and then Background App Refresh. There, you’ll actually find a list of all your applications. You should be able to toggle each one individually if needed (in case there is an application or two you want to remain active) or you can turn this feature off entirely.
Limit Location Services
A lot of the applications on your phone use your GPS. This is often helpful and appreciated, but it can drain both your battery and impact your phone’s overall performance.
If you have a huge number of applications all pulling on your location, cutting this number down can help to improve the overall performance on your phone. Again, a quick trip to the Settings page on your phone can make all the difference.
Settings, then Privacy, then Location Services should allow you to adjust all the settings you need.
Dealing With Cell Phone Issues
“Why is my phone slow?”
A slow and laggy performance is going to be irritating no matter what kind of cell phone you’re using. While this can be frustrating, understanding what causes this and ways you can fix it can help to make the situation a little bit better.
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