How am I using so much data?

[Georgia]

Hello!
Recently, I have completely gone over my bill because I've used loads and loads of data. I understand now that I have to use wifi for everything. Does Facebook cost data when I am using wifi? And whatsapp?
I'm very confused about kb gb and mb. I have no idea what these mean. My brain isn't very good with the technical things haha
And can parents see pictures I send through email? (By the way, I haven't sent dirty emails or anything, I'm just asking that for a friends sake). Thank you in advance!

[Andrew Logan]

all apps can use data, google syncs contacts etc. to the cloud, also apps updating if you have a lot installed, real data eaters are things like dropbox (uploading camera shots to the cloud) youtube, spotify etc, anything that streams media. You can disable data completely in the settings, but also you can disable the updates, syncing etc. in the applications menu or the apps themselves. You can also get apps that will alert you when you are getting near a set limit, most network providers do theis as well.

Using wi-fi is not part of your data usage, so always try and hook up to a network when you can.

The only way parents would be able to see photos sent by you or emailed to you is if they have the passord to your email, or are on a device where you've left you settings in like a shared computer.

[mikeyvillain]

Talking on the phone and texting are not data, but anything else that you do to access the internet will use up data if you're not on a wifi connection. If you're successfully connected too wifi, which you can tell by the wifi icon, not data will be used up for facebook or anything else. Make sure apps are set to only update when you have a wifi connection so they aren't downloading on the 3g/4g connection.

1GB is 1,000 MB. An mp3 is usually about 2-4 mb.

I found a table on this website that breaks down the sizes of typical things you may use here:
http://www.vodafone.ie/internet-broadban...ile/usage/

TVWatching a 30 min episode of a series90MB
You TubeMusic Video – 4 mins 11MB
Radio App10 mins 15MB
Facebook15mins with no video streaming 5MB
Email -100 emails sent/received no attachment 2.5MB
Email - 10 email with photo or doc attachment 18MB
Web Browsing100 web pages 20MB
Web Browsing1 hour 26MB
Google Maps10mins 6MB


As far as I know there is no way for parents to see image attachments unless they have your phone or log into your email account. (unless they add themselves as a forwarding address, which your friend can easily check in the email options). They would need the password to the account to be able to do this.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en

[Derek Keene]

Alas! I'm here to help.
My name is Derek, and I am a billing and sales agent for AT&T!
So this is my area of professionalism!

About everything you do requires data. Sending pictures through text messages uses data. Using facbook uses data.. 99% of apps use data (and the longer you are running the app, the more the data uses). Let me give you an example. You download a game on your phone. You have the game opened for 1 hour straight playing the game. For that entire hour, the game is continuously sending data to the host site that made the game for things like Highscores, user information etc.

I'll give you a quick lesson on storage and stuff real fast too. KB stands for kilobyte. MB stands for Megabyte. GB stands for gigabyte. KB, MB and GB are all measures of space on a computer (or phone or tablet or anything that stores information). KB, MB and GB are what people look for when they are shopping for a new laptop and they want to know how much crap they can download before the computer starts to go too slow because they've downloaded too much. Kilobyte is the smallest, Megabyte is the next one up, and Gigabyte is the largest. My cellphone has a 2GB per month plan. That means I can use up 2 gigabytes of data each month without going over any limits. There is aprox. 1000 kilobytes (KB) in one gigabyte (GB), and 100 in a megabyte.. There is 100 megabytes in a gigabyte and so on and so forth...
So if I send a picture through text message to a friend, and the size of the picuture is 2 KB, then I can send another 1000 pictures of the same exact size before I go over. Not to mention --- Guess what? ---- I just used even more data!

To more directly answer your question - I would have to know your data habits. I would have to know somewhat personal information.. Stuff like if you download and play games, and exactly what games are they? Do you send lot of pictures to friends and family? Do you upload a lot of pics to Facebook? Do you watch youtube on your phone?

This is stuff I dont want to know (haha) - So the best way I can help you directly is to try and help you understand how data works on a contract plan for a phone

P.S. No your parents cant see what kind of emails you send unless they know your email password. They can read your text messages if they wanted to by requesting them from the cellular provider you have though

Don't forget, if you feel I've answered your question best - Please vote it accordingly!

[James Bond]

Lay man explanation of 1MB.

Consider an A4 printed text which may contain 27-30 lines and each line may contain 72 characters.
Two store 1 symbol we need 1 byte. Thus, to store one A4 size we need=72*30=2160bytes
1024Bytes is 1KB. Thus, we need approximately 2 KB to store an A4 size matter. In reality, some compression methods are used which stores mother than this

1024KB = 1MB. Which means app 500 pages of A4 size pages info can be stored in 1MB
Similarly you can extend to 1GB ITB
1024MB=1GB
1024GB=1TB
1024TB=1Peta Byte

[Robert McCrea]

Posting questions on Yahoo! Answers uses data.