How your social media usage contributes to climate change

In the collective imagination, turning on your phone or opening a social media app feels ephemeral — a fleeting moment of distraction. But every second spent scrolling, every video autoplayed, and every device we clutch in our hands is anchored in a vast infrastructure of servers, network cables and factories.

The “digital world” isn’t weightless. It has a footprint, one that is increasingly material in the physics of climate change.  

It’s time to ask a blunt question: does your social media use contribute meaningfully to carbon emissions? And second, perhaps more provocatively: what would change if you never opened an app at all?

From taps to turbines: how digital emissions happen

When you snap a photo, upload a story, or watch a livestream, that action doesn’t vanish into the ether. It triggers a chain of energy-consuming events:

1. Your device’s energy use: Smartphones, tablets and laptops require electricity to operate. They also carry an “embodied” footprint — the carbon emitted during their manufacture, transportation, and disposal. Studies estimate that the production phase often accounts for the majority of a device’s lifetime emissions.  
2. Networks and data centres: Every message and media file travels through mobile networks or fibre optics to data centres — vast warehouses full of servers humming with computation and cooled by energy-intensive systems. Data centres alone account for a substantial slice of the world’s electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions.  
3. Storage and redundancy: Even old photos and messages stored in the cloud contribute to energy demand. Data doesn’t vanish unless actively deleted. Servers replicate information for reliability, multiplying the footprint.  

Simple math maps these processes to emissions. In one analysis that measured platform use via a standard mobile phone, an average of about 1.15g of CO₂e per minute of social media use translates to roughly 60kg of CO₂e per year per person, roughly equivalent to driving hundreds of kilometres in a petrol car.  

Another systematic life-cycle study of digital content consumption by academic journal, Nature — covering web browsing, streaming, conferencing and social media together — estimated that an average internet user’s digital consumption produces around 229kg of CO₂-equivalents per year. That figure represents around 3–4% of typical per-person greenhouse gas emissions.  

Social media’s share of the digital footprint

Isolating social media from “internet use” isn’t straightforward. Platforms differ wildly in how much energy their content consumes. Research analysing emissions per minute of platform usage found that:

• TikTok generated the most emissions per minute among major apps.
• Reddit and Pinterest followed closely.
• YouTube — despite lower emissions per minute — can accumulate large footprints because of longer video watching.  

Taken together across billions of users, these patterns matter: one analysis projected that social media platforms could be responsible for hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO₂ annually — comparable to the emissions of medium-sized countries.  

Yet experts caution against simplistic readings. The sheer scale of digital life means even seemingly tiny per-minute footprints add up. But they also point out that such estimates are deeply sensitive to underlying assumptions (such as how electricity is generated where servers are located).

Does deleting social media help cut your emissions?

The short answer, is yes, by not using social media, you can lower your annual contribution to global emissions by anywhere between 30kg and 140kg of CO₂-equivalents per year.

To make this concrete, imagine two people:

• Alice uses social media — she scrolls daily, watches videos, posts photos and messages friends.
• Ben avoids social media entirely — but still uses the internet for messaging, work email, maps and streaming when necessary.

What’s the likely difference in their carbon footprints?

Device emissions

Both Alice and Ben carry devices with embodied emissions — the carbon cost of making, transporting and eventually recycling those devices. Because producing a smartphone accounts for the lion’s share of its lifetime footprint, extending the life of a device matters more than how many hours you scroll.  

If avoiding social media leads someone to use a phone longer before replacing it, that can reduce annual emissions significantly. On the other hand, if both replace their devices at the same rate, the differential is smaller.

Why video changes everything

Not all social media use is equal.

Short-form and long-form video are the most energy-intensive forms of online content. A study led by researchers from Purdue University, published in Resources, Conservation & Recycling, estimated that one hour of online video streaming can emit between 150g and 1,000g of CO₂, depending on resolution, device and network type.

Autoplay feeds, default HD video and infinite scroll quietly lock users into high-carbon consumption patterns — often without explicit consent.

Data use

Where social media use tangibly adds emissions is in data generation and transmission — especially video content.

If Alice spends hours a day watching or uploading media, her share of the global internet’s carbon demand will be higher than Ben’s.

Depending on platform mix and electricity grid carbon intensity, that additional demand could be tens of kilograms of CO₂ per year or more.  

But importantly: even Ben’s internet use (email, browsing, cloud storage) has a carbon cost. The digital world is not zero emissions without social media; it’s just smaller.

The same comprehensive scientific study by R. Istrate (2024), published in the Nature journal, found that on average, internet use — including social media — can consume up to 40% of an individual’s fair share of a carbon budget consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.  

So what does this actually mean for readers?

At the individual level, quitting social media won’t decarbonise your life overnight — but neither is it trivial:

• Behavioural reductions do scale: lower video quality, less autoplay, and deleting unused content reduce data transmission demand.
• Device longevity makes a difference: keeping phones for longer delays the embodied emissions of new devices.
• Energy grids and data centre efficiency matter: emissions vary hugely depending on how clean the electricity powering networks and servers is.

Framing the issue this way avoids the “blame game” and instead invites readers to think of their digital life as a series of choices embedded in a larger system — one where collective small changes ripple into larger emissions shifts.

What can you do to make your tech consumption more eco-friendly?

Firstly, in an era of climate anxiety, you shouldn't take the burden of the global climate crisis personally.

This is important to state because it's very easy to feel lost in a world where our individual contributions are massively outweighed by climate emissions from global industries.

But studies consistently show that the biggest levers for reducing digital emissions are not performative acts, but quiet lifestyle choices that have multiple benefits asides from reducing emissions.

The biggest levers you can adopt into your daily routine are:

1. Keeping your devices for longer (the single most impactful personal action)
2. Reduce video resolution and turn-off autoplay
3. Use Wi-Fi instead of mobile data where possible
4. Delete unused cloud storage
5. Opt for reading a text-based articles, instead of watching videos with the same information

These findings align with conclusions from the Mozilla Foundation, which has repeatedly argued that digital sustainability must focus on system design and longevity, not guilt.

A digital life, a material cost

We are used to thinking of climate action in terms of food, transport, and energy bills. But the burgeoning materiality of digital life demands attention too. If internet and digital technologies account for roughly 1.5–4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the entire aviation industry, then the screens we tap matter in the calculus of climate science as well.  

Understanding the carbon footprint of your feed doesn’t mean abandoning connection or creativity. It means seeing the digital world in all its physical reality — from turbines and data halls to the mines that produce our metals. And in that understanding lies the first step toward a greener digital future.

At The Quiet Web, we’re committed to helping you lead a healthier, happier life with technology.

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