Image: NASA

Here’s a Great Excuse to Turn Video Off in Zooms

Keep your pajamas on and help save the planet by citing this new study

Jammies have been my primary work attire the past year, and I’ve got Boris Johnson hair most days until an oft-delayed evening shower. For those reasons, plus my undiagnosed but totally legit allergy to video conferencing, I almost never turn on my video camera during Zoom sessions.

But now there’s a much more noble excuse to go audio-only: Videoconferencing is far worse for the environment than a conventional phone call.

Delivering each byte of data over the internet requires a bit more electricity, whose production draws on water and land resources and emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming (2020 tied for the warmest year on record, btw). That’s not news, but in a new study, scientists at MIT and Purdue and Yale universities estimated the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of internet data transmission via Zoom, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and several other platforms and apps including gaming and movie streaming.

They all contribute to our collective environmental footprint, but only one induces the anxiety of being judged for our personal appearance and the lack of heady books in the background.