The stereotype that young Americans prefer to spendtime at homebinging on TV appearance or playing candy compaction on their headphone bring in us millennials a slight derision from other generations . Fortunately , there is now grounds that this homebody behavior is salutary for the environment .
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that the recent trend of staying in is actually aid to drive down national energy consumption levels .
Their sketch , publish in the journalJoule , used national surveys to uncover that people fade a declamatory proportion of their days at home in 2012 than they did in 2003 ; correspondingly , they spent less metre travel or in non - residential buildings .
“ [ Our ] model suggest that Americans are saving Energy Department by spending more time at habitation , " the author indite . " While energy use at home increased , this was accompanied by reduced drive ( the most energy - intensive activity per arcminute ) and operating few commercial building , primarily office and retail exit . "
Overall , Americans spend eight more day at abode in 2012 than they did in 2003 . But when stratifying by age radical , those mature between 18 and 24 drop 14 extra days at dwelling house in 2012 , plus four few days traveling . The author calculated that these accumulative modus vivendi change reduced internal energy white plague in 2012 by 1.8 percent , save up close to 1,700 trillion British Thermal Units ( BTUs ) of heat .
For reference , that ’s around equal to the total energy usance of the nation of Kentucky for all of 2015 .
The cause of this shift was , unsurprisingly , driven by greater reliance on the net for both work and entertainment . Watching TV , using computers , and work from home ( as opposed to commuting ) all took up well more prison term in people ’s lives in 2012 compared with 2003 . The resume data also showed that the great unwashed spent less time stag for non - food and non - fuel point , implying that their material demand are being more and more met byonline shopping instead(millennials really love on-line shopping ) .
“ This is a slight spit in boldness , but you know in ‘ The Matrix ’ everyone hold out in those little pod ? For vigour , that ’s gravid , ” author Eric Williams told theNew York Times . “ In the Jetsons , where everyone is running around in their honey oil cars , that ’s direful for Energy Department . ”
“ DOE volume when you ’re traveling is really 20 time per bit than when spent at nursing home , ” added lead author Ashok Sekar .
One caution , however , is that thecalculations did not let in change in zip consumption drive by the increase demand for Internet service . Data centers , hold the internet of server and other hardware that make up the WWW , were major DOE hog between 2003 and 2012 . Although the efficiency has amend in recent years , the ethernet and WLAN course into our homes still come with tidy tags .
According to the paper , the growth in waiter push consumption during the time catamenia in head counteracts 15 percentage of the 1,700 trillion BTU save by our housebound behavior .
Keep in creative thinker that result of this field of study are only estimates due to the imprecise nature of time use information , but that the pattern of minify zip employment from staying at domicile is probably accurate .
Now , let ’s all get in our sweatpants and nail down into the couch .
