Representative image of a person sharing memes.
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While sharing and receiving memes is the the most relaxing part of many people's routines, it is not a shocker that hardly anyone has wondered how much energy it would use up.
However, as per a recent research, the majority of data stored in the cloud falls into the category of 'dark data' which means that it is used once and never visited again. This implies that all the memes and jokes that we share online are currently sitting in a data centre somewhere, using up energy.
"...Absolutely, data does have a negative environmental impact," the publication quoted Ian Hodgkinson, a professor of strategy at Loughborough University as saying.
The professor clarified that contrary to the popular assumption that data is carbon neutral, every piece of data, be it an image or an Instagram post has a carbon footprint attached.
“So when we’re storing things in the cloud, we think about the white fluffy cloud, but the reality is, these datacentres are incredibly hot, incredibly noisy, they consume a large amount of energy.”
While one image will certainly not destroy the planet, a cumulation creates a big impression in terms of energy consumption. The study found that 68 per cent of the data used by companies is never used again. Meanwhile, each standard email equates to about 4g of carbon.
“There are maybe other big contributors to [greenhouse gas] emissions, which maybe haven’t been picked up. And we would certainly argue that data is one of those and it will grow and get bigger, particularly think about that huge explosion but also, we know through forecasts that in the next year to two, if we take all the renewable energy in the world, that wouldn’t be enough to accommodate the amount of energy data requires. So that’s quite a scary thought," he added.
Urging people to thoroughly think through of all the consequences of their actions as he strongly suggested against using the "dreaded" reply all button, the professor observed: "...Asking ourselves those questions which we’ve never really asked before within organisations and individuals can make such a big difference for behavioural change."