UK comparison site Compare the Market has launched a new calculator that will let you know how much carbon you emit while using social media sites. All you have to do is tell the calculator how many minutes per day you spend on each service it lists, and it will add up your total daily and yearly emissions.
Commenting on the new calculator, Brett Mifsud, managing director of energy at Compare the Market, said: “While scrolling through Facebook quickly won’t do significant damage to the environment, spending five minutes a day on each of the ten major social media platforms is equivalent to More than 20 kilograms of carbon per year, the equivalent of driving 84.5 kilometers (52.5 miles), would cause significant damage, especially given the number of social media users on the planet.”
While finding out the impact of your social media can be important, it’s definitely not the first thing you should focus on when reducing your emissions. The average American has a carbon footprint of 15.52 tons, and the biggest contributors to that score are how you travel, what you eat, and how you keep your home warm.
Compare the Market said the average emissions per minute per app were derived from Greenspector findings and measured on a Galaxy S7 smartphone. Hopefully, TikTok and Reddit will see these numbers and come up with a plan to reduce their emissions.