This disclosure disclose a terminal control method and a terminal. The method may include: when detecting that the front-facing camera is in a low power consumption mode, sending, by the second processor, a first message to the first processor, where the first message indicates that the front-facing camera is in the low power consumption mode; after receiving the first message, controlling, by the first processor, the front-facing camera to collect a low-power-consumption-mode image in the low power consumption mode; receiving, by the first processor, the low-power-consumption-mode image and identifying whether there are a predetermined quantity of consecutive low-power-consumption-mode images that include preset characteristic information, where the preset characteristic information is characteristic information indicating that a user currently needs to use the terminal; and adjusting, by the first processor, brightness of a screen of the terminal according to an identification result.