Today we’ll be doing something quite interesting. I’m gonna tell you some of the most obvious reasons why our smartphones tend to get slower and slower the more we keep using them, and what can be done about it before it becomes unbearable.
So the thing is, our smartphones, just like every other electronics or man-made products out there, all have this imaginary lifespan which they’re all sentenced to, and the closer they approach the end of this lifespan, they begin to give you various signs, with one of them being getting slowed down in performance, especially when opening and loading apps, and it only gets worse from here, till the phone begins to hang.
Another aspect of products where this imaginary lifespan is quite obvious and significant is on clothes. The more you keep wearing, washing and re-wearing a shirt for an extended period of time, the color of that shirt will begin to fade out.
And if you still keep on wearing and washing that same shirt for a much longer time, it might even begin to tear, showing you that it has come to the end of its lifespan.
So having known that, now what are some of the factors that can contribute to our phones getting slowed down with time, the more we keep making use of them, and what can be done about it?
Well, without further ado, let’s get started… #enjoy.
Reasons Why Smartphones Slow Down Over Time, & What To Do
Too Many Apps Installed
This is one of the most common factors that can contribute to your phone getting slowed down over time, the longer you make use of it.
The average phone user installs at least one new app on their smartphones every day. Now unknowingly to you, the more apps you install on your phone, the more storage space they take up on the phone, and the more running processes your phone’s memory have to keep up to.
As a result of this, the phone’s processor can become overwhelmed, and depending on the amount of RAM your phone is packing, it can easily get filled up, and when this happens, you might begin to notice a slight drop in speed when opening and loading apps on the said phone.
And if nothing is done about it, the more you keep using the phone and installing even more apps, the phone will eventually become significantly slow, taking a much longer time to load apps than it used to before.
Solution
- Try uninstalling unused and duplicate apps which you don’t make use of. Duplicate apps are when you have two different apps doing the same thing on one phone. For example, having multiple web browser apps on a phone.
- Secondly, even if you must have these apps installed in your device, maybe for specific features which are in one, and not on the other one, try disabling the ones which are not currently being used at the moment. This way, you’ll be helping your phone’s RAM and processor by giving them some breathing space, which in return makes them focus on just the apps which are currently in use.
Too Many Temporary & Junk Files Chilling In Your Phone’s Storage
Temporary files are files that were generated during phone runtime, they come as app caches and log files from web browsers, the remains of uninstalled apps, gallery cache, duplicate files, and many more.
The more these files keep piling up on your phone’s storage, the lesser amount of storage space that will be left over for more important files to be stored.
So, what can be done about these files?
Well, clear them. But how?
Solution
Most phones nowadays come with an inbuilt phone manager tool that gives users access to clean these junk files from their phones.
Some phones even have a junk files reminder feature that reminds the user of these files when they tend to grow too large and begin to take up too much space on the phone’s storage.
So your phone should probably come with one or something related to that, or maybe with a different name depending on the brand of phone you use.
But just in case you couldn’t find one on your phone, probably because it didn’t come with none, you can simply download any of the various junk files cleaner app from Google Play store to do the job for you.
Your Phone’s Storage Is Full
Now because you have refused to clean up junk files from your device, they keep on accumulating in bits, and before you know it, they have already grown into large files that eat up a larger portion of your phone’s storage.
And secondly, a lot of people have the habit of keeping unused files on their phones even when it is obvious they’re never gonna make use of those files any longer.
Files such as movies. Yes, a lot of people, including myself, have the habit of retaining already seen movies on their phones, especially when the said movie was a very interesting one.
But as time go on, we realize that we’re never gonna see or watch those movies again no matter how long we keep them on our phones. So what do we do in this case?
Solution
Well, delete them, or better still, if you have a form of secondary storage, something like a micro-SD card inserted in your phone, you can move those files to the SD-card so they don’t take up the phone’s main storage.
And secondly, like the last sub-heading above, make sure to always clear off junk files from your phone at regular intervals.
That way, your phone’s storage will be free from getting clogged up with unnecessary files.
You Have Installed Apps That Contain Bugs
Not every app you see on the play store or anywhere is safe, though they might appear safe, and might not really cause any serious harm to your device, but there’s always a “but“.
Some apps if not monitored, can wake up your phone’s camera at any time they like, while for some apps, when given device administration permission, can lock and unlock your device whenever they choose to, some can even restart your phones, while a handful of them out there are just pure virus apps that were built to kill whatever device they come in contact with.
So what can be done to prevent a situation like this from arising?
Solution
- First of all, be careful of what you download from Google Play Store, any app which has been reported in the past to be harmful should be avoided.
- Secondly, you can set up Google Play Protect to regularly check your device at intervals for potentially harmful apps, so that you can delete them. (Google Play Protect is found inside Google Play Store).
- Thirdly, be careful of what permissions you grant to apps and know why they’re requesting such permissions. For example, a photo editing app can’t be requesting to have access to your device location or SMS storage. Get it now?
- Then lastly, don’t just go about sharing and receiving apps or files from whatever phone you see. You should be careful of what phones you’re sharing files to and receiving from. Some of them might be containing viruses hidden in them, even without their users knowing.
Your Phone Has Too Little RAM At Its Disposal
Now for those of us using low-end entry-level phones running on not more than 2 – 3GB RAM sizes, we can’t stop our phones from lagging and freezing especially when there are a lot of apps installed on them and with lots of files jampacked in the phone’s memory.
But here’s what to do about this problem.
Solution
- Uninstall unused and duplicate apps.
- Clean your storage and clear cache as often as possible.
- Download the Lite version of apps whenever possible, instead of their heavy and more storage requiring counterparts. Many apps such as Facebook, Gmail, YouTube, etc, have their various respective Lite versions.
So in conclusion, in case you find you find yourself in a related situation where your phone is beginning to get slow and lag the more you keep making use of it, simply apply the procedures listed and discussed above, and with that, you should see a huge improvement of speed and performance on the said phone.
And that wraps it up for today on reasons why our phones tend to get slowed down with time, and some practical measures we can apply to help reduce these problems.
So kindly give this post a thumbs up by sharing if you found it helpful, and as always, I’ll see you all tomorrow, #Peace Out.
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