Given the success of the brain rot formula on TikTok, several other social media platforms, such as YouTube’s Shorts and Instagram’s Reels, are replicating the business impulse.
Dec 17, 2024 07:17 IST First published on: Dec 17, 2024 at 07:17 IST
It’s official. Doomscrolling is bad — not just for the mind, society and politics, but also for the environment. In fact, according to a recent study by French firm Greenly, it has managed to do damage worth an entire nation’s energy demands — TikTok, a social media app centred around short videos (averaging 42 seconds in 2024), likely produced a larger carbon footprint than Greece this year. YouTube and Instagram aren’t too far behind. Of note is the fact that despite having fewer users than many other apps, TikTok’s energy emissions far surpassed the other platforms in proportion. One of the crucial deciding variables? Addiction (or brain rot, as Gen Z netizens have named it): Users spend much more time on the platform once they log on due to its scroll-happy user interface.
Previous studies on the environmental impact of the IT sector have come to similar conclusions. A 2019 report by the Shift Project notes how CO2 emissions of digital technology increased by 450 million tons since 2013 globally — TikTok is the worst culprit according to multiple studies. Notwithstanding its grim subtext, these platforms may soon be littered with 42 second-videos on these reports, if the comically predictable nature of the digital age is to be trusted. This year was the hottest year on record, as was 2023. Ironically, the many laments one scrolls by online seem to be only intensifying the crisis. Given the success of the brain rot formula on TikTok, several other social media platforms, such as YouTube’s Shorts and Instagram’s Reels, are replicating the business impulse.
The attention economy is here to stay, as are the year-end climate reports that rudely wake one to reality. “Touching grass” then is more than an internet meme. It may be part of the solution — for a cooler mind, politics and Earth, to interrupt the doom and the scrolling — put the phone down.
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