‘Every document, photo and email – even every “like” or comment on social media – travels through multiple electricity-hungry layers of internet infrastructure, including computer servers housed in mindbogglingly large datacentres.’‘Every document, photo and email – even every “like” or comment on social media – travels through multiple electricity-hungry layers of internet infrastructure, including computer servers housed in mindbogglingly large datacentres.’.
I started with small changes to reduce my data use – unsubscribing from unwanted newsletters and deleting unused phone apps.Most of us hoard thousands of old or unread emails and countless photo duplicates. Regularly deleting them can help reduce your digital footprint. Android and iPhone offer basic “free up space” bulk-delete functionality for photos and files. Or try the GetSorted app, which breaks photo clean-up tasks into achievable chunks.To reduce my reliance on energy-intensive cloud storage, I’ve gone analogue. I store all my photos and files on password-protected hard drives, which only use energy when plugged in. I back these up quarterly to two copies, one of which is stored at a friend’s place in case of fire or theft at mine.
So the longer we keep using a device, the better. Refurbished phones and computers are becoming more common, and IT community websites such as