When we talk about pollution, what daily activities come to your mind that you probably think are affecting the environment? Perhaps you considered the excessive use of plastic, the emission of gas transportation, or the gigantic paper production that’s increasing the number of the cutting down of trees.
All of those answers are correct. Yet, there’s another elephant in the room that we must talk about: social media. Every time you upload a picture, share a post, have a videoconference, or even scroll through our feed, you might be contributing more to the carbon emission.
Here’s how social media habits affect the environment and what we can do ways we can lessen said impact.
How much pollution does social media cause?
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that approximately 4.9 billion people, or 63 per cent of the world’s population, used the Internet in 2021.
In addition, climate think tank The Shift Project found that the carbon footprint of our gadgets accounts for 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, which is more than the amount produced by the aviation industry, and is set to double by 2025.
But how does a ‘like’, ‘comment’, or ‘share’ contributes to internet pollution?
In 2021, Greenspector made a study that measured the news feed of the 10 most popular social media applications, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, to find out their environmental footprint. The results? The carbon impact for a user of social media on mobile is of 165.6 gEqCO2 per day. In other words, that’s the equivalent of 1.4 km (or 0.87 miles) traveled by a light vehicle. It also corresponds to 60 kgEqCO2 per user per year, the same as 535 km travelled in an average light vehicle in France.
If those numbers represent the carbon emission of just one person, imagine the ones that apply to all the social media users from around the world.
Also, internet usage requires electricity, an electric activity that still requires largely the burning of fossil fuels, hence a considerable amount of CO2 emissions.
For instance, Statista found that one minute of scrolling on a newsfeed is the equivalent of driving 13 meters in a car. And these figures increase since an average user spends 28 minutes scrolling daily plus the fact that one usually consumes multiple social media and streaming platforms.
What’s the carbon footprint of each social media?
According to Greenspector 2021 study, the carbon impact on water resource of social media newsfeed per minute of each app were the following:
TikTok— 2.63 gEqCO2/min (0.27 water resource Liters)
Reddit— 2.48 gEqCO2/min (0.23 water resource Liters)
Pinterest— 1.30 gEqCO2/min (0.15 water resource Liters)
Snapchat— 0.87 gEqCO2/min (0.12 water resource Liters)
Facebook— 0.79 gEqCO2/min (0.12 water resource Liters)
LinkedIn— 0.71 gEqCO2/min (0.10 water resource Liters)
Twitter— 0.60 gEqCO2/min (0.10 water resource Liters)
Twitch— 0.55 gEqCO2/min (0.09 water resource Liters)
Youtube— 0.46 gEqCO2/min (0.08 water resource Liters)
In addition, Compare the Market’s carbon footprint calculator revealed that the top three social networks with the highest carbon emission were TikTok, Reddit, and Pinterest for every active user.
Greenspector and Compare the Market concluded that the social media with the largest carbon footprint is TikTok. When it comes to energy consumption, TikTok’s news feed consumes 1.8 times more power than Youtube’s.
Ways to reduce digital pollution
The immediate answer would be “stop using social media”. Hold your horses! Before we start to panic, though this seems as an optimistic solution, it would be quite difficult for many to carry it out— myself included— for the fact that we live in a digitally connected global world.
What you can do to lessen your social media’s usage carbon footprint?
Turn down your gadgets’s brightness— Energy manager, Eric Potkin, found that reducing your screen’s brightness from 100% to 70% can save up to 20% of the energy that it uses.
Send fewer selfies— I know that it took hours to finally get the perfect picture to post on social media. But, before you sharing the pic, just think that a single selfie emits 5g of CO2, which is more than a regular email.
Turn off video during a meeting— A 2012 University of New South Wales study found that a five-hour video call between people in different countries could produce up to 215kg of CO2. Unless it’s necessary to have your camera on, maybe stick to your mic only.
Avoid using mobile data to watch videos— To limit digital pollution from video streaming, opt for downloads or WiFi instead of 4G to play videos. You can also turn off automatic playing of videos on social media and adjust the quality of videos on YouTube. In fact, watching low definition videos leads to less environmental impact.
Limit energy consumption of your electronic devices— Whether it’s your phone, laptop, or tablet, make sure not to leave them on all the time. For instance, you can deactivate the GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth functions when not in use or put them in airplane mode. Likewise, turn off routers as frequently as possible.
Take a break— If you normally spend at least two hours on social media per day, why not take a break? Or perhaps you can put a daily time limit on your apps to let you know if you’ve been online for a long time. Not only does this help you lessen your social media consumption, but you can also use that extra time for other activities!
The key is to find ways to become an eco-friendly digital user.
