IOS – Hidden processes causing huge increase in ios data usage

On my first iphone the data usage was both reasonable and logical at the beginning, but a couple months in and I was seeing a ridiculous increase of >5x usage. I started off average 5-8 gb/month and by the time I stopped using the phone usage had gotten up to 20 gb HALF-WAY thru the month. I know modern sites average 1-2 mb insize and I was conscious of my streaming. My browsing habits didn't change that much and certainly not that much. I tried a few things like turning off vpn (although theoretically this shouldn't matter) but still had the crazy consumption. I figured I must have picked up a virus.

On 2nd iphone now and like the first usage was reasonable when new, then things started to ramp up. This time it's to a lower extent and in fact I could be imagining it (or maybe not). What I'm not imagining are the numbers in the cellular settings. Usage for anything that uses data is listed individually and they're always supposed to add up to total usage at the top. Just recently total usage has begun to doubled any app I've used, which is almost exclusively safari. So I would have 2 gb usage in safari for one day (this still seems high) but total usage is 4gb. There's no other listed app/process that makes up that remaining 2 gb and like I said I've been on safari exclusively.

The unaccounted for gigs clearly show there are processes going on out of the normal scope of the cellular settings (also my own knowledge that I've only used safari). Is this a virus or something else? Can I use an ios task manager equivalent (if there is one) to view all processes and help figure this out?

As an aside, another behavior I feel was not present originally on both phones but now is: the browser has to constantly refresh tabs as I switch between them, without ever closing safari. Could be related.