Users of social media have coal, oil and natural gas to thank for having the ability to post and view things online.
Over 5 billion people around the world currently use some form of social media and fossil fuels are the main energy suppliers for social media companies. The more popular apps like TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram require a lot of energy.
According to Greenspector, TikTok has had the greatest carbon impact of any social network application. The site saw energy consumption of 15.81 mAh (milliamps per hour) when the average is around 10.73 mAh.
David Holt, President of Consumer Energy Reliance, said it can be easy to forget about the energy component as a user of social media.
"We need that permanent, always on power that comes from largely natural gas or nuclear or a little bit of oil," Holt said.
To add more of a spark, the use of ai generates up to 10x more energy for things like looking up something through a search engine like Google. The average annual use of social platforms globally is 4.3 trillion hours or 260 trillion minutes.
Holt said social media applications all require data centers to house their data collection and use a lot of energy. He predicts more of these centers to pop up across the globe.
"We're going to be adding a lot more of these centers across the United States and the world which is just going to demand and require more energy," said Holt. "Elected officials and regulators and the energy industry are trying to get a grapple with it."
Holt said there will be so much more new energy needed over the next 10 years for social media and their data centers. Adding renewable energy like wind and solar into the mix will help the cause. He calls it a "complete reinvention of the United States power sector."
According to Holt, the state of Texas is right in the mix when it comes to adding new power demand and having data center hubs. Other states are still trying to figure out their plans moving forward.
"We're going to need to make sure that we have sufficient energy to meet all of those needs," he said.