What is this and why is it murdering my battery?

[Happenstance]

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The spinning circle made of arrows beside the 3G. It just started showing up a few days ago and when it's up, the lifespan of my phone's battery becomes incredibly short. When the icon goes away, my battery life goes back to normal. I haven't installed anything within the past week (other than "ShootMe" to take a screenshot & "Appdragon" to email myself a list of my apps and those were both downloaded today) so I'm uncertain if it's an app that is causing this. Just FYI, here's a list of my phone's apps.

3G Watchdog (0.27.1)
Advanced Task Killer Free (1.9.6B76)
Angry Birds (1.5.3)
App Dragon (1.22)
Barcode Scanner (3.53)
BattStatt (2.0.12)
Battle.net Mobile Authenticator (1.0.1)
Bluetooth Toggle Widget (1.2.8)
Brightness Toggle Widget (1.0.4)
ColorNote (2.1.1)
Doom Live Wallpaper (0.36c)
Facebook (1.5.2)
Flashlight (3.8.9)
GO SMS Pro (3.30)
Game Time (2.2.5)
Google Reader (0.9.3)
HTC_IME mod (v.27)
Keyboard Calibration (1.0)
LauncherPro (null)
LauncherPro Plus Unlocker (1.0)
Mario Live Wallpaper (0.94b)
Paper Toss (1.0.9)
Screen Timeout Widget (1.0.3)
Shake Them All! (1.78)
ShootMe (0.8.0)
Swype (2.29.71.20487)
Swype Installer (1.4)
Uninstaller (1.4.3)
WiFiKeyboard (2.3.1)
Wifi Toggle Widget (1.2.7)
Zedge (2.2.2)

The phone is a Motorola Backflip. I do plan on getting a new phone within the next few months but I would greatly appreciate anyone that will be able to answer and solve this problem for me because atm, I can't have my phone away from a charger for very long. Even with nothing running and everything on as low settings as possible. Please Help!

 

[garrettfarnum]

It looks like your google account is constantly syncing, go to settings>accounts and sync and change the update frequency to every hour or something to your liking. The less it syncs throughout the day, the better your battery life.

 

[adammcgovern]

That ball with the arrows.....sync. definitley check your settings. also maybe get system panel to monitor what apps are eating your battery life. But he's right if you're constantly syncing you will lose battery fast. Also there are some really good threads regarding battery life in the general help and how to forum

 

[PvilleComp]

Also, try clearing the cache in the apps that are syncing - if there is something corrupted in the cache it might be causing the app to constantly sync.

 

[Happenstance]

I assumed it had something to do with Google as I typically don't see it on my battery usage page. Seems that Gmail was constantly trying to sync, unsure why.. and I didn't have any option to set the frequency of the updates so for the time being, I just disabled it. I should have realized that was the syncing emblem, majorly face palming on this one lol

But thank you guys so much, this thing has been a major pain for me.