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Social media carbon footprint calculator

Enter your daily minutes on reels, feeds and streaming to estimate the yearly CO₂ of your screen time, based on India's electricity mix.

Free to use · nothing is stored · sources for every factor

Calculate your screen-time footprint

Rough daily minutes are enough.

An estimate for awareness, not an audited figure.

Quick answer

What is the carbon footprint of social media?

It comes from the electricity used by data centres, networks and your phone. The IEA estimated that an hour of video streaming used about 0.077 kWh in 2019; at India's grid rate of 0.710 kg CO₂ per kWh, that is about 55 g CO₂ an hour. Feeds and chats move less data than video, so they use less.

Where the emissions come from

Every video, scroll and message uses electricity in three places: the data centres that store and send it, the mobile and broadband networks that carry it, and your phone or TV. The IEA's 2020 analysis estimated that an hour of video streaming used about 0.077 kWh in 2019, far less than early estimates suggested, as reported by Carbon Brief.

India's electricity is more carbon-intensive than the world average, at 0.710 kg CO₂ per kWh (CEA, FY 2024-25), so the same hour of video emits more here: about 55 g CO₂.

How to reduce it

  • Watch on Wi-Fi rather than mobile data where you can.
  • Lower video quality on small screens; you rarely see the difference.
  • Turn off autoplay so videos you are not watching do not keep loading.

Put it in context

Screen time is usually a small part of a person's footprint next to home electricity, travel and flights. See the full picture with the carbon footprint calculator.

Common questions

Is streaming bad for the climate?

Its footprint is modest compared with travel or home energy. It still adds up across billions of hours, and lower video quality and Wi-Fi help.

Why is my result different from other calculators?

Estimates vary widely with assumptions about networks, devices and electricity. We use the IEA's 2019 energy estimate and India's grid factor; you can change both under Assumptions.

Do reels use more energy than feeds?

Video moves much more data than text and photos, so reels and short videos generally use more. The calculator counts feeds at half the video rate by default.

Does Wi-Fi use less energy than mobile data?

Generally, fixed broadband uses less energy per gigabyte than mobile networks, so Wi-Fi is the better choice where available.

Can I balance my digital footprint?

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