I’ve touched on mobile phone before as part of a wider vista, but would like to write a bit more about them and their place in the world. They form a major part of the operation of data centres and their ferocious appetite and thirst for energy and water respectively.

I was running along the Grand Canal when I spotted a young person rooted to the spot and engrossed on her phone. When I looked back a little later, she was still standing there on the phone. I felt like saying to her as I passed, “would you consider putting the phone away and enjoying the lovely canal-side scene on this sunny day?” When I go for meals in the Buttery in Trinity College, many of the students are crouched over their phones, or pointing something on the screen to their friends. I now can’t use 'Too Good to Go' to save food being wasted in shops and cafes, because I can’t swipe a smartphone to get delivery! Apparently holding a phone in your hand is de rigueur these days. How have mobile phones come to define so much of our life?

In my youth, there was no such thing as mobile phones. We made occasional calls on our home landline, while being mindful of the length and cost of the call. Contacting somebody at any time or place was not in our imagination. I have continued to be smart-phone free, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult as many facets of life now demand one for us to operate in.

I’m concerned about the impact of mobile phones on young people and their childhood. Children as young as 8 and 9 are using the devices and accessing inappropriate material online. Many hours are spent on a screen when children should be playing games and interacting with their friends. This sedentary activity is not good for their physical development and general health. Parents are under increasing pressure to give phones to their young ones. Australia has now banned social media for under-16’s. In Ireland, parents are coming together to get smart phones out of schools.

Rock concerts nowadays are full of screens recording the event. The audience are recording the event for future viewing, and missing out on the actual in-the-moment experience. At art galleries, it annoys me that people are taking pictures of the art works and not enjoying the paintings themselves. Tourists taking selfies of famous landmarks place the emphasis on the person and not the beautiful sites. Maybe I’m a curmudgeonly old man and need to go with the flow of modern life! Even one of my favourite journalists, Fintan O’Toole who has recently retired from the Irish Times, has weighed in on mobile phone culture. He brings up the mobile phone usage by the cardinals at the recent conclave in Rome!

Smart phones are also having a major impact on the newspaper industry. Less people read a physical paper these days. I’m told that newspaper articles & news are read on phones, but I’m not convinced. It is hard to read a detailed broadsheet on a small screen and zoom in to a sizeable article as required. In the past, commuters would read a paper or a book while waiting for a bus – now they are scrolling to see when the next bus arrives! On train journeys, I see much less books and newspapers in use, and far more phone activity in various modes.

There has been great attention paid to the exponential rise in data centres. Data Centres are soaking up nearly a quarter of Ireland’s national electricity, a staggering amount when you consider the EU average is 3%. The Data Centre industry is the single largest driver of electricity demand in the country, increasing their electricity demand by over 400% in less than 10 years! Key Findings Data Centres Metered Electricity Consumption 2023 - Central Statistics Office

An Taisce has advocated well on this subject in recent years with current policy on data centres and in the news item. There are over 7 billion smart phones in the world today and they have risen by at least 5% annually in recent years. Smart phones make up 94.2% of all devices used to access the internet. This means that they generate the vast majority of the need for data centre operation. Social media has transformed the way we communicate, connect, and consume content. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are now integral to our daily lives, with billions of users engaging in endless scrolling, sharing, and video streaming. However, while these platforms bring convenience and entertainment, they also come with an often overlooked environmental cost: the energy required to keep these platforms running.

How much energy is needed for our phone usage? One estimate by Zero Waste Scotland suggests all our online activity generates an average of 8.62kg of CO₂ a week (about 448kg a year), or about 30 miles in an average-sized petrol car. However, a German estimate (which also includes the emissions created by the production of digital devices themselves) says we expend around twice that, roughly 850kg a year. The average WhatsApp group chat uses 2.35kg of CO₂ a week. Every message, no matter how small, goes back and forward via a data centre and therefore uses energy. We should be unfriendly and minimise thank-you and acknowledgment notes to save CO2!  While both email and phone calls contribute to energy consumption in data centers and networks, phone calls, particularly mobile phone calls, generally demand more energy due to the real-time nature of the communication and the associated infrastructure requirements.

After energy needs, what about water usage? Data centers use significant amounts of water, primarily for cooling systems to manage heat generated by servers. Water usage can vary significantly, with estimates ranging from 0.5 million to 5 million litres per day for an average data centre. While high end usage is less common, data centers can consume water equivalent to a large town. Hybrid cooling systems, which utilize water only during high heat, are becoming more prevalent to reduce water consumption. In Ireland, Friends of the Earth told us about Meta’s water-hungry data centre in Co. Meath. It uses as much water as the entire town of Ashbourne in one year - and it faces no water restrictions.  The Dublin area has most of the data centres in Ireland and has increasing water supply issues due to population expansion in recent years. This will severely restrict water needs in the capital if data centre numbers expand.

Having said all that, I haven’t mentioned AI (Artificial Intelligence) yet! This will increase data centres’ energy needs exponentially. Ironically, I used Google’s AI service to get summary information on a contribution by a fellow member of the Dublin City Association of An Taisce in the 1990’s – Sadhbh O’Neill, on the subject.

Séan O’Callaghan, Planning Officer in An Taisce, who helped me with the stats in this blog, has advised posting ”–AI” after a Google search to stop summary information being supplied, and thus saving energy. I don’t have the answers to address this social media problem and mobile phone usage generally. I do my little bit by not having a smart phone (I’m happy with my old Nokia, but find life getting increasingly restricted). It will be difficult to turn back the tide on over 7 billion smart phones in use. Maybe put the phone away regularly and be more physical in our lives.

Postscript:

I may come over to some readers as an old fogey(!), so I want to add that there are some benefits of smart phones:

• One can save paper tickets by presenting your phone at theatres and concert halls, etc.
• Googling in the pub can help solve argumentative points instantly, but don't use your phone during a table quiz!
• Apps can help identify plants and animals by taking a photo, and bird sounds can be recorded for precise identification.

Eric Conroy, 8.9.25