The New York TimesThe New York Times

The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think

By Steve Lohr

24 Jun 2021 · 3 min read

The giant tech companies with their power-hungry, football-field-size data centers are not the environmental villains they are sometimes portrayed to be on social media and elsewhere.

Shutting off your Zoom camera or throttling your Netflix service to lower-definition viewing does not yield a big saving in energy use, contrary to what some people have claimed.

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