Digital Fasting for Lent: Reduce Your e-Carbon-Footprint

Why is digital fasting good for you?

We're already halfway through Lent 2021, but anytime is a good time to start a new, lifelong habit! So why not take advantage of the three remaining Lenten weeks and do some digital fasting to get closer to the Lord, closer to those around us, do some introspection, and reduce our carbon footprint?

As bestseller Mark Manson puts it when explaining the down sides of social media:

There's no way we can process the tidal waves of information flowing past us constantly. Therefore, the only zeros and ones that break through and catch our attention are the truly exceptional pieces of information. All day, every day, we are flooded with the truly extraordinary. The best of the best. The worst of the worst. The greatest physical feats. The funniest jokes. The must upsetting news. The scariest threats. Non-stop. This flood of extreme information has conditioned us to believe that exceptionalism is the new normal. And because we're all quite average must of the time, the deluge of exceptional information drives us to feel pretty damn insecure and desperate, because clearly we are somehow not good enough. (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,  2016, p. 58)

For around 5 years, I had seen how friends, relatives and acquaintances —on the one hand— showed off and boasted on Facebook about their "amazing" lives and "exceptional" selves; while —on the other hand— I got to hear from them directly how they were struggling with co-dependent relationships, depression, addictions, identity crises, promiscuity (to name a few problems) or at least, how they were just being as average as I had always known them to be since before the appearance of social media. (Please note that there's nothing wrong with being an average human being. And also note I'm not judging anyone who has undergone those issues. I myself have suffered some of them.)

Seeing that, I realized something I had known all along but hadn't really become aware of: that scrolling down my Facebook feed would not help me keep in touch with the people I cared about or really get to know how things were going for them. Likewise, as Manson mentions, all these up-to-standard photos and digital pretensions had sometimes made me feel like my life was not as edgy, adventurous, or intense as it should be. And I had even felt this during the happies and most blessed periods of my life, like when I was doing my Master's Degree in Ireland. Was I really not living my life to the fullest as those around me seemed to be doing? No; I was just not broadcasting it on social media.

After realizing this, I was able to reduce my time spent on Facebook from around 3 hours a day (!) to cero seconds. I now just use it as a birthday reminder app, and for that sole purpose, Facebook works wonderfully 😎 That was a good first step, but I still had Instagram and Pinterest luring me with notifications every half an hour or so. There was always a new amazing pin about illustration, sustainable fashion, or homesteading I felt I had to add to my boards. 

That's when a reality check struck me with neck and thumb pain. Some people get it sooner; some, later. But it eventually hits you if you spend more than 2 hours a day on the phone, which by the way, is what most people do (Entrepreneur). I suffered those physical consequences before the 2020 pandemic, when thousands of people got that same reality check over spending too much time on social media due to lockdown. Luckily, by then I was already undergoing my ecological conversion, using my time more productively to tackle my ecological, spiritual and emotional problems. We all have them!

Thanks to my reality check, I decided that I had more than enough inspirational pins in my Pinterest account (I had managed to save 4.5K pins in the last 5 years!), and that Instagram —although great to be up-to-date regarding ecological tips and trends— was paradoxically increasing my consumerism habits. I've always had a soft spot for shoes and stockings, and Instagram knows it! Trust me, whatever your soft spot is, social media knows, and it will make sure to seduce you with very tempting products and offers in EVERY. OTHER. POST. This can, naturally, cause lots of anxiety as it awakens our unquenchable hunger to possess amazing stuff or, otherwise, feel an illusionary unsatisfied need 😢

So the bottom line is, for your own wellbeing's sake, open your phone's digital wellbeing app (most phones come with one pre-installed) and check how much time you're wasting on your phone every day. Each new week, try to reduce it by 15 minutes or so; remember it's better to take small, feasible steps. And allocate that time to doing something better. Has your mother been asking for your help to do something and you just "haven't had the time"? Has your pet being calling out for attention, but you're always "too busy"? Have you been wanting to grow your own herbs at home, but keep pushing it for "next week"? Are you failing at your Lent purpose of praying daily?

Now you know from where you can regain some time to put all those great plans and intentions into practice!

Why is digital fasting good for the planet?

Now, I don't mean you to believe I've quitted Instagram or Pinterest completely. But I have reduced the amount of time I spend on those apps significantly. And I believe I've been able to achieve this because I don't only do it for myself; I do it for the planet too, and this can be more motivating than just doing something for one's own benefit.

Each of the activities you perform online comes with a small cost –a few grams of carbon dioxide are emitted due to the energy needed to run your devices and power the wireless networks you access. Less obvious, but more energy intensive, are the data centres and vast servers needed to support the internet and store the content we access over it. Although the energy needed for a single internet search or email is small, approximately 4.1 billion people, or 53.6% of the global population, now use the internet. Those scraps of energy, and the associated greenhouse gases emitted with each online activity, can add up. The carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and the systems supporting them account for about 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, according to some estimates. It is similar to the amount produced by the airline industry globally. And these emissions are predicted to double by 2025. (BBC)

So, while digital fasting might not be as urgent as saving water, separating liter correctly, composting, or eating local, organic produce, it does have a tangible impact worldwide and it can cause a drastic change on our daily habits, improving our efforts on charity (loving others as we love ourselves) and spirituality. And these values are essential for our integral comprehension of caring for nature and all living beings. "Religions —as the sources of spirituality— have to be the wisdom leaders for ecological transformation because religions are the ones who can bring the sacred back to science and technology. Otherwise, science and technology become means of domination, instead of what they should really be: means of service to all Creation" —Dekila Chungyalpa, Founder of the World Wildlife Fund's Sacred Earth program.

So, how can you practice digital fasting?

1. Emails: According to carbon footprint experts, the emails we receive and send generate around 2kg of CO2e every day. We can reduce this by:
• Abstaining from "thank you" emails. 'If every adult in the UK sent one less “thank you” email, it could save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year –the equivalent to taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road, according to energy company, OVO.'
• Sending heavy files via WeTransfer links instead of attaching them to an email. Heavy emails produce around 50g CO2e more than regular ones.
• Unsubscribing from mailing lists and automatically generated newsletters. According to estimates by antispam service Cleanfox, the average user receives 2,850 unwanted emails every year from subscriptions, which are responsible for 28.5kg CO2e.
2. Video calls: Video calls over the internet produce a way higher carbon footprint than phone calls or internet audio calls. A one-hour video call between people from different countries produces around 45kg CO2e. Therefore, do not turn your camera on during virtual meetings, except if it's a very crucial one, or if you're e-meeting with new clients/colleagues/vendors.
3. Memes, Emojis, GIFs, Stickers: "Sending a message via a private messaging app such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger is estimated by experts from Lancaster University to be only slightly less carbon intensive than sending an email. Again this can depend on what you are sending –gifs, emojis and images have a greater footprint than plain text." (BBC) Hence, it's best to avoid memes, videos, photos and stickers unless the information they contain is really valuable for the receiver. Likewise, it's best to use vintage, character-based emojis on instant messaging apps, such as  :)  ,  :(  and  :0
4. Social Media: "For those who enjoy flicking through their social media, there is some good news. It is arguably the least carbon intensive form of digital entertainment. According to Facebook’s sustainability report, a user’s annual carbon footprint is 299g CO2e, which is less than boiling the water for a pot of tea. But if you consider the platform has more than one billion users, that’s a lot of pots of tea." (BBC) So as I mentioned earlier, track how much time you spend daily on social media and try to reduce it to an amount that you feel is ecologically responsible and good for you.
5. Video Streaming: "Watching online videos accounts for the biggest chunk of the world's internet traffic –60%– and generates 300m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year!" (BBC) One third of video streaming is accounted by pornography; another third, by on-demand video services such as Prime and Netflix; and the other third, by YouTube videos. Needless to say, porn should not be watched for countless reasons. And we can reduce our use of on-demand streaming to only once or twice a week. It's nice to watch a movie or some episodes of a good series on a Friday night, and read the other days of the week. Regarding YouTube videos, it's imperative to avoid using them as background noise to fall asleep or work.
6. Music Streaming: 'Rabih Bashroush, a researcher at the University of East London and lead scientist at the European Commission-funded Eureca project, calculated that five billion plays clocked up by just one music video – the 2017 hit Despacito– consumed as much electricity as Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic put together in a single year. “The total emissions for streaming that song could be over 250,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide,” he says.' (BBC) Thus, instead of streaming from apps like Spotify or Google Music, it's less harmful to download music once directly to a device and then play it as many times as one likes. For example, I've compiled around 8k songs throughout my teenage and adult years so far, and I recently upgraded my precious ipod classic to an ipod touch. Although using an ipod might sound outdated, it gives me access to an almost "unlimited" amount of songs without having to stream. How have I achieved this? First of all, for the past 15 years or so, I've managed to borrow and rescue as many CDs as possible and convert them to AAC in my computer. Secondly, during the same time span, every end of year, I've made a list of what I consider are my "musical jewels" of the year and I buy them online with money I've saved throughout the year.
7. Storage on Clouds: Archiving your files on clouds is quite energy intensive, as they rely on data centers and huge servers needed store all we save. Therefore, it's much better to regularly save all your stuff in external hard drives. For example, every six months I transfer my phone's photos (the nicest ones at least) to my hard drive. I've been doing this for around 9 years, so the habit is deeply rooted in me now. I use no clouds.
8. Web Surfing: Experts from Lancaster University have found that web browsing on a phone over a mobile network is at least twice as energy intensive than doing it over wi-fi. And according to Google, an average user of its services performs 25 searches a day. So, it can be quite a carbon-high activity if we do these searches over a mobile network; and it's therefore better to wait until we get to the office or home and do our searching either directly on the computer or connecting our phones to a wi-fi signal.
9. Online Shopping: The abovementioned principle applies equally for online shopping 😉
10. App Notifications: App notifications add up to your phone's digital traffic and carbon footprint. In addition, they make you open your apps several times a day, and can boycott your efforts to fast from the virtual. Hence it's good to turn almost all of them off, except perhaps your Whatsapp notification tone.

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