Environmental Problems
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I had continued to use the Internet with dial-up access more than 10 years. Usually I had used the Internet for sending and receiving the e-mail or uploading my page to my web site. Occasionally those had contained photos and graphs but those sizes were small. So I had thought "I am using all of the Internet functions which I need," and I had been satisfied with this access procedure.
But recently when I heard young people's conversation, read the newspapers, or watched TV, I felt "My uses for the Internet are different from their uses." When I was thinking such things, a sales engineer of a cable television company came to my house and recommended the advantage of the package deal contract including the television, telephone, and Internet. And he said "We will set up the troublesome change of the Internet access connection free of charge." I decided to contract with them by way of trial.
When I was using the dial-up access, I was asked "Access" or "Not access" every time to link to the Internet. If I chose "Access," I had to hear the ringing tone for 10 seconds or more, before the linkage was established. Under the new environment, if I click a button of the using software, the linkage is established at once. The other day I thought that I had stopped writing e-mail and had had a lunch, but when I was back to the front of the computer, the e-mail had been sent already. I think I will be able to get used to the new environment soon. So I am optimistic about this kind of a stupid blunder, and I think this quick response becomes very convenient and comfortable tool for me when I want to consult something on the Internet while I am operating the computer. I am expecting that I will be able to get the necessary information quickly without the discontinuation of my thought.
At the same time I began to be afraid about the largeness of compensation for the pursuit of convenience and comfort. If I change the mode of my computer from the energy-saving to high speed, the response of the computer will become quick and comfortable. But the temperature of exhaust from the computer rises certainly. This is the evidence of the increase of the electric energy consumption.
When we get the high speed computer and communication line, it is natural for us to want handling more information than before, such as high resolution photos, movies, and/or television broadcasting. As the result the electricity consumption of the uploading computer, downloading computer, and the servers that stores and sends the uploaded information must increase. Recently the news reported that the electricity consumption at the Data-Centers was abruptly increasing. Probably the Data-Centers meant the servers which I mentioned above.
Of course if the information handling speed increased, the information handling time would decrease on a piece of information. But I never hear that the increase of the information handling speed reduced the operation time of the computer. So the increase of the handling speed might increase the electricity consumption directly. I have never used the cellular phone, but I think the situation of personal computer and cellular phone maybe is nearly equal. And the phone is relatively cheaper than the computer. Therefore when the phone becomes a little old, it is thrown away easily and a new phone is bought. I think it is a great waste of the resources.
I thought the Internet the Savior to save resources used by the mass media, but my thought has changed. If everyone monopolizes the computer, and treats a lot of information all day long, the Internet will become a media which consumes resources most. Therefore the people concerning the newspaper, television, and Internet have to cooperate to make use of their strong points and to reduce the consumption of resources.
We, general users of the Internet, also can contribute to reduction of electricity consumption greatly. I have shortened about one hour/day of computer operation time already for the measures against insomnia and electricity consumption.
uploaded March 11, 2006