Jan 13, 2017 12:11 PM EST By Staff Writer, UniversityHerald Reporter

Smartphones aren't exactly known for having superior battery life. Browsing social media sites, playing games and watching videos on YouTube are recipes for quick battery drains. A new Facebook Messenger bug, however, seems to be draining devices' batteries faster than necessary.

Messenger and Facebook itself taking a huge chunk out of a phone's battery power is not entirely surprising, though it's still manageable most of the time. Lately, though, several users noticed that using Messenger dramatically increased their phones' battery consumption more than the usual, Android Central reported.

Users have complained about one percent battery consumption per minute while using the messaging app, and those complaints are totally reasonable. It turns out that those dramatic spikes are way out of the intended battery consumption rate for the app.

Facebook Messenger chief David Marcus recently responded via Twitter to a user's complaint about the app's battery draining issues. He apologized for the problem and provided a simple way to resolve it.

It turns out that the issue was "isolated and fixed server side." Marcus also advised users to close Messenger and then restart it to eliminate the problem.

Facebook Messenger recently launched a new feature that helps users stay tightly connected to their friends and loved ones. The app's latest iOS and Android versions now have group video chats.

Group video chats are already present in other messaging apps out there, but Facebook Messenger's allows a whopping 50 people to chat at once, Express reported. That's definitely a far cry from the ten users allowed per chat of other messaging services.

Facebook Messenger's group video chat may sound chaotic and too noisy for some, and other users may take issue with how 50 separate people are going to be displayed on one smartphone screen. Are they going to be stacked on top of one another, or shown as little icons with their facial features completely indiscernible?

Facebook Messenger's group video chat shows the first six users in the call in split-screen experience. If there are more than six users in a chat, only the dominant speaker is shown while other users' video streams get relegated to selectable status.

Also, Facebook Messenger now allows players to play classic video games (e.g. "Pac-Man" and "Space Invaders") within the app. The app has a Messenger Lite version, too, which is perfect for older Android smartphones with less memory and weaker processors.

Have you experienced Messenger's dramatic battery draining problem recently? Sound off in the comments section below!

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