In Journal 7, I discussed four different types of digital technology and how I’ve considered them to affect my community. In this project, I’m going to explain the ecological impact of each of these technologies, the direct impact these technologies make, and who I believe should hold the authority of limiting (or extending) the reach these technologies have. The technologies I will be talking about in this project are: Ride Sharing Apps, Digital Communication as a whole, Media Content Sharing Apps, and Instagram.
Ride Sharing Apps: Overall, the environmental impact of ride sharing apps is pretty contested. While some claim that Uber, one of the most popular rideshare apps, have created increased traffic congestion and produced a larger carbon footprint since they have mobilized those who didn’t have a way to travel to begin with. On the other hand, there are also studies saying it hasn’t in fact increased traffic concentration and might in fact have been environmentally helpful if we directly compare fuel consumption of Uber rides vs. the gas that is being saved from using public transit, as well as a variety of different factors. (PESTLE Analysis) As far as the production of Uber goes, it definitely is a sensitive topic. It is no secret that Uber has been rather controversial over the last couple of years. With track records of sexual harassment, crummy buisness tactics, and the founder going on to join Trump’s economic-advisory council, (Buisness Insider) working for Uber has proven to be not necessarily good, but not really comparable to sweat shops and low quality over-seas factories.
Digital Communication: As broad of a category as digital communication is, it does have a rather large carbon footprint. Cellular companies like AT&T can put out as much as 11 million metric tons of CO2 annually (AT&T) and that’s only considering SMS alone. In 2018, Facebook produced three hundred thirty nine thousand tons of CO2. (Sustainability FB) Digital technology as a whole consumes an incredibly large amount of energy, and a large portion of that technology involves communication in some form. It’s also important to remember that, while digital communication does have a carbon footprint, it is much smaller than physical communication like mail or travel as the fuel consumed used during this process creates a much larger carbon footprint than the energy consumed by sending a text. Since this technology is so broad, the work conditions of those who produce it can vary largely, from a programmer in Silicon Valley to somebody manufacturing parts for an AT&T antenna in Asia.
Media Content Sharing Apps: Media conglomerates take many different forms online. Some companies produce their own content and share it themselves, like Funny or Die or CollegeHumor, some create their own content and share it through other platforms as well as their own, like the Onion or BuzzFeed, and others are just a platform for entirely user generated content, like Reddit or iFunny. Finding the footprint of a given website is very tricky, especially these media conglomerates. Everything involved in the process of getting these websites to your computer uses energy, from the servers that host the sites, the computer you use to view the sites, and the computers the content creators use to create the content that gets shared. While it is hard to get an exact number of how much energy platforms like these exactly consume, it was calculated that the internet as a whole is responsible for 10% of the world’s total energy consumption, according to study a KTH Royal Study in 2014. (Dexma) However, media aggregates, especially the ones with user created content, often have content promoting clean living and strategies to reduce one’s carbon footprint. During the Amazon wildfires or particularly helpful environmental movements, like Team Trees, an initiative trying to earn the funds to plant 20 million trees by the beginning of 2020. It is hard to say whether these social movements make up for the footprints left by these media conglomerates, but at least they somehow manage to be close to environmentally friendly, considering their social influence.
Instagram: Instagram does create social advocacy in the same way that media aggregates do, sometimes even being more effective. The user base of Instagram consistently values socially conscious content, with environmental topics being no exception. The hashtag #carbonfootprint has over 110k posts, #globalwarming has over 1.3 million, and #environment has over 5.2 million. While these posts might not all be environmentally conscious, as anyone can tag any photo with whatever they find appropriate, this still shows that there is a conversation being had on this platform. While Instagram is a great platform for posting about environmental issues, does the company have a large footprint itself? According to Andie Stephens, associate director of The Carbon Trust, “As a general rule, something that uses more data has a higher environmental impact. So, sending texts uses a lot less data than photos, and photos use a lot less data than videos. This means that to a large extent the impact of a platform will depend on what you tend to share through it, and how many people are downloading it.” (Vice). Instagram’s entire platform revolves around sharing, viewing and downloading photos and videos. Considering the size of the user base, I would assume Instagram to create a rather large carbon footprint compared to other social media services.
So, as tech takes up a larger and larger footprint, we have to ask ourselves: “Who should be held responsible to keep these tech giants under control?” While letting them be responsible for themselves is definitely the easy answer to this question, time has proven this is no longer an option. While the EPA does exist to protect the environment, we need more progressive laws in place to better meet our global climate budget. Not using platforms which aren’t environmentally clean is a great way to show that this is an issue that matters to you, as money speaks louder than words. However, how do we control the ethical and cultural footprints that big tech has on us? This is an incredibly complex question which doesn’t have a concrete answer, but there are plenty of options which can remedy a deep cultural shift. Like the prompt suggested, both individual ethic committees and government regulations can be powerful tools protecting us from the digital dystopian future we all fear. However, I think the biggest tool we have to fight against this is our individuality. Anything that enables us to truly make our own decisions with as little outside influence as possible is the closest we’ll ever have to technology serving us rather than us serving the technology.
Work Cited:
PESTLE Analysis: https://pestleanalysis.com/pestle-analysis-uber/
Buisness Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-company-scandals-and-controversies-2017-11#august-2016-judge-rejects-ubers-100-million-settlement-with-drivers-19
AT&T: https://about.att.com/csr/home/reporting/issue-brief/greenhouse-gas-emissions.html
Sustainability FB: https://sustainability.fb.com/sustainability-in-numbers/#section-GreenhouseGasEmissions
Dexma: https://www.dexma.com/blog/how-much-energy-does-the-web-consume/
Vice: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/d3wa7a/is-using-social-media-bad-for-the-environment
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