Screensavers Don't Save Anyone

Three events in my life collided recently. One: For some time I had been thinking about making a holiday season screensaver to give away to you, my beloved readers. Two: I recently finished listening to the audiobook No Impact Man and have been quite moved by it. Three: I recently saw a documentary focussing on Europe's plans for reducing carbon emissions. In this documentary there featured a Greenpeace office worker discussing the urgent need for reduced carbon emissions. Behind him was his desktop computer, displaying a screensaver.

How do these things relate? Glad you asked. I've been thinking a lot about the environmental impact of my industry — software design — and feeling pretty good about it's low environmental impact when offered as download-only. I don't feel so good about the polycarbonate discs that are still a major way of distributing software. Discs that will outlast your children's children, but will be practically useless beyond just a few years worth of OS updates.

I feel even worse about the actual computing machines they run on. Consumer electronics surely must be the most toxic mainstream industry there is. What other industry takes a combination of very rare elements like gold and coltan, combines them with some very poisonous ones like BFRs and mercury, and then places them in tiny formations with hundreds of other substances in a single, practically impossible-to-recycle unit? And to top it off, makes that unit go from highly desirable, to not worth giving away, within a decade.

Once the computer is made, much of it's life will be spent idling. Checking back a million times a second to see if the human on the other end has pressed a key. And heck, maybe that human walked out to lunch anyway. The computer doesn't really know*. Worse, sometimes a computer will turn on a "screensaver" and show that instead of sleeping the display. Using electricity when doing nothing useful.

Screens don't need saving. We do. If a computer is not being used, it should be off, or asleep. And if a screen is not being used, it should be off, or asleep. So dear reader, that's why Santa is not bringing you a UI&us screensaver this Christmas. I hope you don't mind. 

* I've been looking into repurposing an older computer for my mum, as a way to keep her connected. Big fonts, and some simple system to display the latest photos and tweets on the screen with no interaction required. One idea has been to make the computer automatically detect her motion when she's next to it, and wake up. That way she can see the latest news with no interaction at all. It doesn't seem too hard. I really don't understand why computers don't do it already.

Comments

[Kevin Cheng]

Then perhaps a screensaver that records how long its been on (per session and in aggregate) and translated to carbon-cost might be good?

[Keith Lang]

Hehe. A bit redundant ;-)