Data Diaries: How this Portland girl dad uses his mobile data

Welcome to Data Diaries, a series from Mint Mobile where we find out how well our own employees actually know their wireless data usage habits, in an effort to help you better understand your data usage habits as well. Since we all work for a wireless company, we should know a thing or two about how we use our 5G·4G LTE data, right? Let’s get into it.

Meet Greg

Greg lives in Portland, OR and works remotely full-time as Mint Mobile’s Senior Content Manager. He’s also a husband, a girl dad and an avid podcast listener who likes to keep up with entertainment news and culture on Reddit. He takes his phone with him to Portland’s many unique coffee shops so he can use his mobile hotspot to work via a secure connection, and listens to podcasts via the Overcast app. 

“I do try to hit up different coffee shops and try new spots to work out of—just to mix it up in different neighborhoods and check out different areas. That’s definitely when I use a lot of my mobile data.”

Pregame: Greg’s data predictions

Before we started tracking Greg’s data usage for the week, we asked for his expectations. While he may be on Wi-Fi all the time when at home, he does have drop-off and pick-up duty throughout each week, where his daughter watches her iPad in the backseat. This is when he listens to podcasts over mobile data most often. 

“When I‘m driving my 4-year-old daughter to school, she rides behind me and will often be watching a show on her iPad, so it can be easier for me to listen to talking on a podcast than music.”

As we mentioned earlier, he likes to get out of the house and work at various places around Portland, using his mobile hotspot to make sure his connection stays secure. 

“I try to be very careful when I work outside the house, from a security standpoint. Connecting to my personal hotspot is definitely a lot safer than just connecting to a cafe’s wireless network.”

So we know podcasts and hotspot are likely going to make up most of his data usage. But what other apps do we think might round out the top 5?

“Reddit is where I watch the longest video clips; that’s probably the app that will end up using the most data.My favorite apps are Reddit and Instagram. I use Bluesky a decent amount but it’s text based, so I don’t think it uses much data.”

Game time: Greg’s week of data usage

Key findings from Greg’s data diary

After recording his predictions, we tracked Greg’s data usage for seven straight days and the results were… almost exactly what he said they’d be.

We see that Reddit took the top spot, as Greg predicted, thanks to him getting most of his movie and music news there in the form of long videos. Right behind Reddit we see Overcast, the app Greg uses to listen to podcasts all the time, and his mobile hotspot, which he uses every time he works outside his home.

“I was surprised that my personal hotspot was in my top 3. The week that I did this I worked out of the house a bit more than in an average week. Usually, I work outside at least once, maybe twice. Last week there was a maintenance thing [at home] so I was out of the house more than I usually am.” 

Rounding out the top 5 were Google Chrome, his mobile browser of choice, and Instagram—though he was a bit shocked to see it bringing up the rear.

“I thought IG would be higher, I feel like I’m on it too much. I was also surprised that Spotify wasn’t in the top 5, but I guess I mostly listen to music lately on my laptop while I work, or on my record player. Yes, I am the stereotype of a Portland dad.”

After adding it all up, Greg used about 3.7GB of mobile data for the week, which would come to approximately 15GB of data in one month—about 5GB less than the average data user goes through each month.*

Postgame analysis: Greg’s final thoughts

So how did this enlightening week change Greg’s perspective on his monthly data needs? Well for one, it reminded him to disable background app refresh. 

“With Overcast, when a new podcast is available, you can get a URL from the creator, pop it into the app and it can auto-download into the app and be ready for you to listen to.”

A convenient feature for sure, but one that can slowly chip away at your data if you’re not auto-downloading those full episodes over Wi-Fi. But even taking that into account, it seems our 23GB plan would be more than enough for Greg’s average monthly usage.  Many wireless users believe they need an unlimited data plan because they stream, surf, scroll and swipe all day from anywhere. And for many people, depending on usage and Wi-Fi access, an Unlimited plan is their best bet. However, with accessible Wi-Fi being as common as it is nowadays, some users don’t go through nearly as much high-speed data as they expect.

Curious about how much data you actually use? You can track your data for a week using your phone’s app info in the settings menu; check out fellow Mint Mobile employee Denisse’s data diary for more IRL usage info; or you can start by checking out our blog that will walk you through determining your data usage at the link below. 

_{*https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/services/cell-phone-plans/how-much-data-do-you-need}