Our digital clouds, overflowing with images and files, are unknowingly causing increasing harm to the environment. According to experts, individual users' data habits carry not only financial costs but also serious environmental consequences.
The dreaded warning "Your cloud storage is almost full" has become a common nightmare for many.
What users often don't realize is that this digital accumulation increases both energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Users subscribed to various platforms can spend hundreds of lira annually just on storage services.
USERS UNAWARE: STORING DATA ALSO HARMS NATURE
Professor Tom Jackson from Loughborough University explains that digital data is stored on remote servers found on the internet, and these data centers require massive amounts of energy.
"Thousands of servers run continuously in data centers. Power consumption is high, and cooling systems account for nearly half of the total energy use."
According to research, the carbon emissions from data centers have now surpassed those of the aviation sector. In 2021, Google's average data center consumed about 1.7 million liters of water per day.
Most of this consumption was for cooling the servers.
According to Jackson, "If data consumption continues at this rate, by 2033 — just eight years from now — the global electricity demand driven by digital data could surpass total global electricity production."
NOT JUST COMPANIES — INDIVIDUALS ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE
Experts note that it's not just big tech companies irresponsibly storing data — individual users do it too.
Unused apps, repeatedly taken photos, and years of unsorted messages occupy unnecessary space in data centers.
Digital strategist Adela Mei says, "The digital space has turned into a kind of junkyard. When people back up their data, they don't consider the environmental impact."
Olivier Subramanian emphasizes the importance of small steps:
"Deleting old photos and unused files, cleaning out your emails, compressing large files, or archiving them on physical disks can be helpful."
EXPERT TIPS: CLEAN YOUR DIGITAL DESK
Delete unnecessary files and empty the trash
Use efficient formats for photos (e.g., .webp)
Enable auto-backup only for essential apps
Disable auto-download of media in apps like WhatsApp
Identify large files manually instead of using cleaning apps
As Professor Jackson puts it:
"Data may be invisible, but that doesn't mean it's carbon neutral. Every file has a footprint."
