Django application to monitor and display generation of random content in real time using web sockets in order to promote environmental awareness online
The purpose of Project Litter Bug is to raise awareness for the impact data has on the environment. By creating a script to randomly generate useless content, and calculating the resources spent storing and maintaining this data, the project hopes to conceptualize the abstraction that is online energy consumption in the hope of making the Internet a greener, more thoughtful place.
According to Domo's fifth annual "Data Never Sleeps" Infographic, 2.5 million terabytes of data are created each day. By 2020, it's estimated that this rate will have reached over 60 billion terabytes a day. The amount of data is growing so quickly that every two years more data is created than has existed in all of human history. The vast majority of this information is recorded in traditional data centers. In the U.S., these centers use more than 90 billion kWh of electricty a year which, using the EPA's greenhouse gas calculator, results in 63 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That's the same amount of emissions generated by 13 million passenger vehicles driven for one year.
However, when we use the Internet we don't often think of it as something with a carbon footprint, yet every byte of information we access requires energy. One pertinent example is the way we think about streaming. From podcasts to video conferencing, the use of streaming has exploded over the last few decades. It has changed the way we work and entertain. Of the many streaming services that exist, Netflix is the largest. According to the Global Internet Phenomena Report from Sandvine, it consumes 15% of the world's Internet bandwidth, streaming 97,222 hours of video every minute. In order to combat such high demands, Netflix has taken steps to optimize its streaming algorithms and cut back on data usage by adding features such as the “Are you still watching?” prompt, which requires users to manually respond in order for streaming to continue. The very fact that adding this prompt had a direct impact on their bandwidth numbers means that there existed video being streamed wastefully, to an absent, unengaged audience—a careless and inefficient prospect that, although we may not think of it as such, seems like an abstruse form of littering.
Another example is the way we think about uploading media. Take YouTube for instances. It, like Netflix, is a massive streaming service. It allows anyone to watch and anyone with an account to upload videos, removing the barrier of entry for creators and popularizing a new way of distributing content. The results are wide-spread availability of informative and entertaining videos like never before in recorded history. However, a study from Bernstein Research found that only 1% of videos account for 93% of the views. This means that of the estimated 2 billion videos on YouTube, 1.99 billion of them are saddled with 7% of the viewership. This, coupled with the fact that 300 hours of content are uploaded to the site every minute, means that it is impossible for every video to be watched. There exist what amounts to digital junkyards in the YouTube database, whole swaths of forgotten content, unused, untouched—waste.
The point being that whether we are consumers or producers we have a responsibility for the data we access because there is a cost attached. Not just in the form of our own electricity bills but in the resource we consume in order for the Internet to run. Even if it this consumption is wildly abstracted from us. This is not to say that we should never upload a selfie or indulge in the occasional binge watch, but rather to be mindful of how the Internet works, that although it is a truly magnificent invention, it should not be used frivolously.
There is a part towards the end of Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom about how outdoor cats will catch the occasional bird and that the owners of these cats don't think much of it since it's only on occasion and the birds are common in the area, so it seems innocuous and like there's no real effect. However, in aggregate, when we consider all the outdoor cats that kill the occasional bird each year, we see that outdoor cats are a contributing factor to why 40% of the nearly 10,000 bird species are in decline. So although it seldom feels this way, our individual decisions do have an impact on the world around us. We shouldn't wait for large corporations like YouTube and Netflix to develop optimization algorithms. The onus is not just on them. We have a responsibility, as consumers, creators and engineers, to use data wisely and effectively, so that tomorrow will be less wasteful than today.