a programmer is developing software for a social media platform. the programmer is planning to use compression when users send attachments to other users. which of the following is a true statement about the use of compression?

Compression reduces the size of attachments so they use less storage and bandwidth, but it can require extra processing time and, with some methods, may lose data.

What compression does

• It encodes the same information using fewer bits, so files take up less space on disk.

• Smaller files travel faster over the network, reducing transmission time and bandwidth usage when users send attachments.

• This can improve overall app responsiveness because less data must be transferred for each message.

Trade‑offs to keep in mind

• Compressing and decompressing data uses CPU and memory, so it adds computation overhead on client devices and servers.

• Some compression is lossless (no data lost, typical for documents and most attachments), while lossy compression (common for images, audio, video) permanently removes some information to achieve higher size reduction.

A typical “true statement” for an exam-style question

For a social media platform sending attachments, a correct option usually looks like:

“Compression can reduce the amount of data transmitted over the network, decreasing transmission time and bandwidth usage, but it may increase the time needed to encode and decode the data.”

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.