Youtube is among the most visited websites all over the world. Youtube, a video sharing platform, is preferred by many people to make money. Other people use this platform for information and entertainment purposes.
Many people prefer to watch videos to pass the time when they are outside during the day. This requires the use of mobile data. If you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you need to be mindful of how much mobile data you use each month. This situation brings to mind “How much internet does Youtube eat?” brings the question.
Why does youtube use so much data?
Transmitting video is an information-intensive process. The video consists of thousands of pixels that can change several times per second. In other words, there is a lot of information that needs to go through the internet to reach your device.
Compared to downloading a web page or streaming audio, video is more complex. In this regard, it uses more data. However, this situation is not limited to Youtube only.
How much internet does Youtube take?
The amount of data Youtube uses depends largely on the quality of the video you are viewing. The higher the resolution of the video, the more information your device has to download. This means more data.
- 144p
If you watch a video for 1 hour at the lowest setting of 144p, you will only use 114MB of data. This translates to 0.003 MB per second.
- 240p
Likewise, if you watch a 240p video for 1 hour, you will be wasting 162 MB of data. This shows that 0.045 MB of internet is used per second.
- 360p
In this period when 4K screens are very common, 360p is seen as a very low resolution. A 360p video consumes between 5 and 7.5 MB of data per minute, while it consumes 300 MB or 450 MB of internet per hour.
- 480p
480p, which is very high in terms of data saving, is the most preferred resolution. It uses between 8 and 11 MB per minute and between 480 and 660 MB per hour.
- 720p
720p, which was sufficient in the past, is seen as a low setting today. A 720p quality Youtube video uses 1.24 to 1.7 GB of data.
- 1080p
People who want to watch a high resolution Youtube video on their smart phone prefer the 1080p setting. Videos in this setting use between 2.03 and 3.04 GB of data per hour. In addition to all these resolutions, there are also 1440p and 2160p resolutions.
How to reduce youtube data usage?
Even though the video quality is set by default in Youtube videos, the quality drops to the lowest 144p. If you think that you are using too much data because of the videos you watch, it will be very effective to reduce the quality of the video.