Why your smartphone might be slowing down

Have you noticed that your Android smartphone battery performance is a little less than stellar lately? The culprit is likely to be a social networking app such as Facebook or Instagram, according to a new report.

The list compiled by security firm AVG also found that the Irish obsession with the weather could be responsible for burning through your data allowance. The Android App Performance report for the first quarter of 2015 found chat apps topped the charts in terms of the most resource hungry “auto-running” apps for Android users, while the amount of time being spent on card and casino games such as Solitaire and Livepoker has also spiked.

Apps can use up a significant amount of resources by constantly checking for updates, pushing notifications through to users or downloading high-res graphics.

“Many of us take every day practical apps like weather and chat for granted and despite spending little time on them, the impact on our devices is actually quite significant,” said Tony Anscombe, Senior Security Evangelist, AVG Technologies.

“A number of unexpected apps such as these are consuming battery, storage, and data traffic without users’ knowledge – and, in many cases, for no good reason. So if you’re wondering why you’re not getting the best performance out of your device, this could well be why.”

Facebook Messenger has also experienced a surge of popularity among Android users, overtaking Whatsapp and Gmail to be ranked number one on the list, according to AVG.

In the UK, Candy Crush was the top battery-drainer in the game section, with the Daily Mail's app responsible for bumping up users' data consumption.