On iPhone, to truly disable an app from running in the background you must do BOTH of these things: 1. disable "background app refresh" 2. disable *all* no

On iPhone, to truly disable an app from running in the background you must do BOTH of these things: 1. disable "background app refresh" 2. disable *all* notifications for this app On IOS, enabling notifications is a "back door" that allows an app to run all kinds of battery and privacy sucking telemetry even when the app is "closed". The useless option to disable "background app refresh" is an (unintentional?) dark pattern that makes you think it does what both of these things together actually do. I'm assuming that some app makers are just abusing Apple's intentions with these settings. Disable both of those for popular social media apps and watch as your mental health and battery life improve dramatically. Of course with some apps (like messaging apps) you may actually want/need notifications so it's not always an easy choice.