Digital fasting: Saving our souls and the planet
Fast from digital media! That is the gist of the pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines at the start of the Lenten season in February. The CBCP said, “constant engagement with phones, social media, streaming, gaming, and online entertainment often absorbs our attention and weakens our interior life … Digital media fasting, therefore, invites a rediscovery of silence, prayer, contemplation, and authentic relationships.”
Apart from its spiritual objective, the bishops’ call is also timely for environmental reasons. As experts are now saying, digital fasting will ultimately save our planet. In his book “The Dark Cloud: How the Digital World is Costing the Earth,” journalist Guillaume Pitron debunks the great conventional belief that because the internet is virtual, paperless as we say, it is ecologically friendly. He said, “Digital pollution is colossal, and it is the fastest-growing type of pollution.”
First, he examines the devices or gadgets we use, which include computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Every year, 1.5 billion mobile phones are sold worldwide, and their production is environmentally costly. The minerals for these devices are mined from mountains or forests somewhere. In 1960, the dial-up phone contained 10 chemical elements; now a smartphone uses up 54 raw materials, which are mined from underground. With built-in obsolescence, frequent replacements increase mining, and disposal can create environmental havoc. The minerals they contain can seep into our water systems or float into the air, causing harm to living creatures.
Pitron said “data,” which includes text messages, emails, photos, and videos we share online, is considered the new gold in our knowledge economy. It is estimated that 47 zettabytes of information or data is produced globally each year. If one byte is comparable to a drop of water, this amount is like the “volume of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea combined.” The ecological impact of all this comes from the energy or electricity we use up when we watch a video or write an email.
“We need to realize that even our most banal digital habits have a carbon impact. An email produces a minimum of 0.5 grams, and as much as 20 grams if there is an attachment—the equivalent of a light bulb switched on for an hour. And to think that 319 billion emails are sent every day around the world!,” Pitron said. The entire digital industry already consumes 10 percent of the electricity generated worldwide, he added.
All the data that we share is eventually stored in what we call “the cloud,” huge storage facilities usually located in cool countries and far from civilization. Operational 24/7, they consume so much electricity and water. “Cooling an average-sized data center,” Pitron explains, “can take as much as 60,000 cubic meters of water per year, enough to fill 160 Olympic-size swimming pools, or meet the needs of three hospitals.” Today, there are more than 3 million data centers across the globe, each on a lot of at least 500 square meters,
With all the foregoing, Pitron makes a solid case for what he calls “digital sobriety.” We cannot avoid being online, for sure. But with the awareness that “digital is physical” and in many cases, “digital is dirty” or ecologically wasteful, perhaps we can then be more discerning in our digital activities and every now and then fast digitally, as our good bishops have suggested.
Fr. Nono Alfonso, SJ,
nonosj@gmail.com
