Social media: choose what earns your attention

Scrolling has no universal carbon number. Your screen, connection, platform and viewing time all matter, and an app's energy use cannot be inferred from one tap. A better starting point is to separate posts you meant to see from feeds that keep playing by default. ECOA's methodology treats any estimate as educational, not a measurement of your account.

CISA advises people in the United States to review the privacy and location settings of a social account; this is about safer sharing, not a measured carbon saving. CISA

Notice the feed you actually use

For a week, write down when you open a social app for a particular person, event or message and when you continue through suggested videos. This is your own observation, not a population statistic. Keep the contacts and communities that matter to you. If a feed repeatedly serves videos you do not want, look for its autoplay, notification or following controls; their availability varies by app and version.

Share at a useful size

Before posting a long clip to several places, ask whether each audience needs the whole file. A short caption with one accessible version may communicate better than repeated uploads. Do not reduce resolution if it obscures text, captions or a visual detail people need. If you share someone else's image, check permission and privacy first; a theoretical data saving does not justify exposing a person.

Try one reversible change

Turn off one nonessential alert or change one autoplay setting, then compare a normal week with the next. Record time spent, uploads you chose and whether you missed something useful. These are personal observations, not kilograms of emissions avoided. Re-enable the feature if it supports work, accessibility or connection. The point is to make the feed serve you rather than to impose a universal rule.

Sources

• ECOA methodology
• CISA: Manage your Online Presence